X INTRODUCTION. 



in it. The landed interest — owners and tenants — were 

 well-to-do, and there was rough plenty for the paid and 

 unpaid retinue of the landlord in those days before the 

 " piping times of peace " had brought down prices by 

 the run, and the great famine and its consequences 

 had ruined the gentry and broken the hearts of the 

 people. 



For those who were not afraid of roughing it in a 

 comfortable way, it was a sportsman's paradise. It 

 is true that the actual appetite for killing seems to have 

 been indulged in, rather childishly. " It was a bright 

 and cheerful day ; the sun sparkled on the blue water, 

 which, unruffled by the gentle breeze, rose and fell 

 in the long and gentle undulations which roll in from 

 the westward when the Atlantic is at rest. While puUing 

 to the cove, we amused ourselves by shooting puffins 

 as they passed us, or trying our rifles at a distant seal, 

 while my kinsman's anecdotes whiled away the tedium 

 of the voyage." Puffin shooting, and " trying rifles 

 at a distant seal " would not be regarded to-day as 

 very worthy occupations for a true sportsman, especially 

 in a country which abounded with such variety 

 of legitimate game. On the very day, for example, 

 on which this incident is described, a party enjoyed 

 the two very different sports of coursing and mullet 

 fishing, and, after a magnificent run with Irish and 

 English greyhounds, netted upwards of a hundred 

 mullet weighing from four to ten pounds each. 



Abundance of interesting lore is to be found in these 



