horse

Start here:
www.google.com/search?q=Holden%27s+Laharna+hotel&sca_...

www.ebay.com.au/itm/296003780386?srsltid=AfmBOopYj2D1aUgP...

www.facebook.com/DaughterofLaharna/photos/a.1032682620422...

www.archiseek.com/1905-laharna-hotel-larne-co-antrim/

I might be wrong, but I am guessing the photo is after 1897.

beachcomber australia you might be right!

Here is something: there is a scratched out title line above and to the left of the legible one, which means this is a Cabinet plate copy.
Here is the original Imperial plate image for comparison and maybe more detail -
L_IMP_1029 - catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000329267

Warwickshire Herald - Thursday 25 August 1898

Holidays keepers who intend to spend their summer vacation in the Emerald Isle, can hardly do better than to select Holden's Laharna Hotel, Larne, as their headquarters. The establishment, which is under the efficient personal superintendence of Mr. A. W. Holden. is undoubtedly one of the best in Larne, and visitors will find their material requirements well catered for. In addition to commercial, coffee, dining and drawing rooms. there is a large concert and ball room, promenade roof, tennis court and all the adjuncts of a really first class English or Continental hotel.

and this is what you got for your 2 guineas

For two guineas the can have six days hotel accommodation, including three meals daily. a first-class railway journey to Portrush and Giant's Causeway. a total distance of 180 miles, a coach drive to Glenoe Waterfalls, as trip to Whitehead and Blackhead, a drive round the city of Belfast, with free admission to the principal places. and a fifty mile coach drive to Glenarm, Camlough and Glenariff Falls, along the finest coast in the British Isles. The impression of the visitor to the Laharna Hotel can hardly fail to be that the enterprising host supplies his guest with a marvellous two guineas worth.

If morning Mary was to take a wee trip over the Liffey to the Winding Stair bookshop she might buy Culm Crushers Array By Michael J. Conry. Broadly clum is anthracite slack. The pony I used to work would have had a go at pulling anything but would refuse to put a foot at anything like soft ground so probably would have refused this.

Previously ...

Picture is probably in County Kilkenny as Castlecomer is about the only place to dig decent coal in Ireland, Arigna's not got the quality. But hold it, I don't know what I'm talking about. Arigina on Wikipedia mentions "Seams of culm were worked by miners lying on their sides to shovel the coal out." (nb: uncited) So perhaps Leitrim or nearby possible also.

Duchas: But now the hardest part of the work remains to be done. The mixture has yet to be "danced". This means that the operator must get the mass spread out shallow and must then systematically and without missing any part of it, "dance" it all over. The operator pounds and pounds it with the feet, which are encased in old nailed boots. When thus "danced" all over, the mass is turned with the shovel, spread out, wetted if necessary, and "danced" all over again. This dancing and turning must continue until the mixed mass of culm, clay and water becomes plastic and adheres to the shovel.

Niall McAuley Deirge Del beachcomber australia Thank you gentlemen for your contributions.
As a matter of interest what is the metal object in the foreground? At first sight it looked like a set of fire irons but that curved part at the top is not flexible enough to make it the top of a tongs?

This seems to be a distant relative of Eadweard Muybridge's motion studies. Muybridge used photography to discover that all four hooves left the ground at some points during a horses' gait.