INTRODUCTORY 



rather game and diversion than noxious or hate- 

 ful," from which it would seem that by that year 

 fox-hunting had ceased to be merely a means of 

 killing vermin, and had already been established in 

 Ireland as a sport for its own sake.* 



Here then is a tradition of Irish sport which 

 brings us up to a date before which little is known 

 of fox-hunting in England or elsewhere, and it may 

 be of interest to glance very briefly at the circum- 

 stances in which the sport developed, and in which 

 it became established as a part of the national life 

 in both countries. 



There seems little doubt that fox-hunting as dis- 

 tinguished from the chase of the deer and the hare 

 is relatively a very modern sport; certainly there is 

 little reliable information about any pack of fox- 

 hounds either in Great Britain or Ireland with a 

 history of more than two centuries. It is probable 

 that the sport was evolved on both sides of St 

 George's Channel on similar lines, from small 

 hunting establishments kept by private individuals 

 in various parts of both countries. All the early 

 writers on hunting, from Twici, onwards, have 

 little to say of the fox, and that little points to 

 the very poor opinion in which he was held by 



*I am indebted for these facts in the history of sport in Ireland 

 to the Rev. Edmund Hogan's admirable History of the Irish Wolf- 

 dog. Dublin, 1897. — Mayo. 



