HISTORY OF THE KILDARE HUNT 



hounds. I hope they have had plenty of game, and 

 you good sport. . . . 



I have news to send you from this retired place. 

 Lord Granby has come to-night to Willsford, and 

 has desired me to meet him with Mr Pennant's 

 harehounds on our heath. We go with the fox dogs 

 to Ropsy Rise on Saturday, so I am impatient 

 from it. 



Believe me, your affectionate and sincere friend, 



E. Calcraft. 



It will be noted that this letter establishes the 

 fact that Mr Conolly had a well-established pack of 

 foxhounds in Kildare as early as 1764. It is interest- 

 ing to note, too, the famous soldier the Marquess of 

 Granby, whose features still survive on many old 

 inn signs in English villages, at his diversion with 

 the harriers at Ancaster in the same year; and the 

 mention of harriers and of " fox dogs " by Mr Cal- 

 craft seems to confirm the theory of the gradual 

 evolution of fox-hunting from the chase of the hare 

 of which I have written in the previous chapter. 



A letter of Mr Wm Sherlock, written from Sher- 

 lockstown on March 20, 1777, and mainly 

 concerned with a projected meeting of the Jockey 

 Club, " occationed by Several Rules of the Jockey 

 Club having been broke through," contains a 

 concluding paragraph relating to hunting in Kil- 

 dare which I may quote. 

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