84 MEMOIR OF THE KILKENNY HUNT. 



when he did, the Hunt would have been placed in a 

 very awkward position from not being able to meet 

 its engagements. 



On the loth May, 1871, a proposal was received 

 from Lord Waterford, through Mr. Horace Rochfort 

 of Clogrennan, at a Hunt meeting, to take over the 

 Rosbercon country (often erroneously called the 

 " Ross " country), which Mr. Briscoe declined to 

 hunt. This tract of country embraces all the area 

 from Tory Hill to the village of Rosbercon, and from 

 that up to Woodstock. Lord Waterford proposed 

 to take the country for ten years, and to make new 

 coverts, &c. The arrangement proposed was carried 

 out, and remained in force till the Curraghmore 

 Hunt came to an end. This country has for the 

 last few years been hunted by the Kilkenny Hounds 

 again, having reverted to the Kilkenny Hunt when 

 Lord Waterford gave up the country. In the early 

 autumn of 1873 Sir J onn Tower died in London, 

 aged seventy-five. He had hunted regularly up to 

 the last two years of his life, and a very few years 

 before his death hunted six days a week with the 

 Duke of Beaufort, whilst staying at Badminton 

 during part of the season, riding just as forward as 

 he had ever done. Whilst staying in Dorsetshire 

 during the spring of 1872, he went too earl)- to a 

 meet, caught a chill whilst waiting, and was sei/ed 

 with a stroke, from which, indeed, he rallied, but was 

 never the same man afterwards, and was never able 

 to hunt again. His death left a gap in the Kilkenny 

 hunting field and in Kilkenny society which it is 

 scarcely possible to estimate. All over Ireland, and, 



