HISTORY OF THE KILDARE HUNT 



They spent that day in merry heart 



And killed the fox which crowned the 

 sport, 

 And returned that night by moon so bright 

 To the sporting place called Bishops- 

 court, 



The evidence of the existence of a hunt at Johns- 

 town rests partly upon the fact that Sir John Ken- 

 nedy, the first baronet, whose mastership of the 

 Kildare Hounds will be the subject of a very impor- 

 tant chapter of this record, succeeded to a tradition 

 of sportsmanship in his family, and was the third 

 representative of a very notable line of foxhunters. 

 His grandfather, Mr John Kennedy, who died in 

 1758, and his father, Mr E. Kennedy, who died in 

 181 1, both kept hounds, and there are old silver 

 buttons still preserved by Sir John Kennedy, bear- 

 ing the inscription " Johnstown Hunt." The exis- 

 tence of these buttons appears to me to place the 

 matter beyond doubt. It is probable indeed that 

 the Johnstown pack was one of the earliest running 

 in Kildare, for I find among the ConoUy papers a 

 letter from a member of the family, Mr Charles 

 Kennedy, to Mr Conolly which suggests that in the 

 year 1780 there was no separate pack at Johnstown, 

 but that at that date the Kennedys were sup- 

 porters of Mr Conolly 's hunt. 



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