MEMOIR OF THE KILKENNY HUNT. 



CHAPTER I. 



TtRIOR to the establishment of the Kilkenny Hunt 

 9f Club, several private packs of hounds hunted 

 parts of the county. The Earl of Carrick kept a 

 pack in the last century, and his brother, Mr. Butler 

 Cooper, is said to have kept a pack whilst residing 

 at Ballyduff, on the River Nore, and to have ridden 

 down the rock of Dysert whilst following his hounds. 

 Tradition says that Lord Carrick's huntsman spoke 

 only Irish. The ruins of his house remained until 

 the middle of the present century in the long wood 

 in Ballylinch, which stretches parallel to the river at 

 the Thomastown end of the demesne. These packs, 

 however, hunted only the woodlands, and probably 

 hunted hares and deer as well as foxes. There were 

 other packs in various localities also, and the county 

 may be said to have been hunted in a sense ; but it 

 was not till the year 1797 that a regular pack of fox- 

 hounds hunted the whole of Kilkenny. In that year 



B 



