CHAPTER XVII 

 IRISH WATER SPANIEL 



HERE are few more tantalising subjects for a dog man who 

 wants to find out things than how the Irish water spaniel 

 was developed. Here is a dog with more marked peculiari- 

 ties than any sporting breed that can be named, which was 

 improved, manufactured or developed almost by one man, 

 or at least in one man's lifetime; yet neither from this Justin McCarthy 

 nor from any of his contemporaries did there come a single word as to how 

 the breed was made, if by them; nor where and from whom it came to 

 them, if they did not make it. 



It was not until 1859 that anything tangible was known about this 

 water spaniel in England. That year Mr. McCarthy wrote a description 

 and gave a few particulars regarding the breed which he had developed, 

 and by that means it became known, but he gave no history of it, nor any- 

 thing regarding its origin. Mr. McCarthy said he had owned them for 

 thirty years, but nothing as to how or from whom he got them. 



Our research for earlier references to water spaniels in Ireland has 

 produced nothing. Colonel Hamilton never once mentions them, though 

 at the early part of the last century he was in the south of Ireland, where 

 the breed is claimed to have originated; this variety being known as one 

 of two or perhaps three Irish varieties, and named the South of Ireland or 

 McCarthy breed. One or two books on Irish sports were no more pro- 

 ductive, and the only reference to a dog bearing any resemblance to the 

 one in question is Captain Brown's description of what he calls the large 

 water spaniel. He mentions the large water dog, and the lesser water 

 spaniel or poodle, each of which is stated to have a ringlet coat or one 

 showing length. This large water spaniel, however, is quite different, 

 and whether he was a half-bred Irish spaniel or of the same foundation 

 stock, we leave to the imagination of the reader. We cannot help thinking 

 that this is the same dog, for very certainly if we omit the white markings 

 from this description it would be a good one of the tousle-topped Irishman. 



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