HISTORY OF THE KILDARE HUNT 



undoubtedly owe much to that gentleman. But 

 after an inquiry as full and exhaustive as I could 

 make it in existing circumstances, I am unable, for 

 reasons which will appear, to support tradition to 

 the extent of accepting the Castletown pack of those 

 early days as the fount and origin of the present 

 Kildare Hunt. But it is certain that indirectly at 

 least, the success which fox-hunting has enjoyed 

 in the Kildare district for more than a century owes 

 much to Squire Conolly, and any inquiry into the 

 origin of the sport in Kildare must take full account 

 of any evidence which exists of the establishment 

 which he maintained on a large scale at Castletown 

 during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. 



By the kindness of Captain E. M. Conolly, the 

 present owner of Castletown, descendant of Squire 

 Conolly, who has placed many interesting private 

 papers at my disposal, I think I shall be able to 

 give some important particulars of the develop- 

 ment of hounds and hunting in Kildare, and a 

 glance at least at one of the most notable of the 

 private hunting establishments which in Ireland as 

 elsewhere made the modern sport, as we know it, 

 possible. 



Squire Conolly married Lady Louisa Lennox, 



daughter of the second Duke of Richmond in 1758, 



and at the date of the first letter bearing on the 



subject of our inquiry had succeeded to his paternal 



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