^88 WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



CHAPTER XLI. 



If ever a district were designed by Nature for field 

 sports, a person, from even a cursory glance upon the 

 map, would point to Mayo. Its great extent of 

 mountain surface, interspersed with bogs and morasses 

 — its numerous and expansive waters — and its large 

 tracts of downs and feeding-grounds, render it available 

 for every purpose of the sportsman ; and few species 

 of game indigenous to Britain, in their peculiar 

 seasons, will here be sought in vain. 



As a hunting county, the plains have been justly 

 chronicled — and the adjacent counties of Galway and 

 Roscommon yield to none in the empire. The extensive 

 sheep-farms afford superior galloping-ground — and the 

 fences, though few and far between, from their size 

 and character, require a powerful horse and dashing 

 rider. Hence, in the annals of fox-hunting, the bipeds 

 and quadrupeds of Connaught are held in due estima- 

 tion ; and it has been stated, without contradiction, 

 that in their own country no men or horses can compete 

 with them. 



During the last century, the West of Ireland was 

 celebrated for its breed of horses. They were of that 

 class denominated " the old Irish hunter," — ^a strong, 

 well-boned, and enduring animal, that without any 

 pretension to extraordinary speed, was sufficiently fast 

 for fox-hounds, an excellent weight-carrier, and, better 

 still, able to live with any dogs and in any country. 

 As fencers, this breed was unequalled ; and for a crack 

 hunter to carry ten or eleven stone over six feet six of 



