SIR FENTON AYLMER AND MR A. HENRY 



describes as " most of them whelps of the Duke 

 of Bedford's " with the pack at Castletown, whose 

 early history and composition I have examined in 

 the last chapter. The phrase, too, " mine are now 

 all foxhounds " rather points to the inference that 

 until a date not very long before 1798 Sir Fenton 

 had been hunting a pack of harriers, presumably 

 from Donadea Castle. Further, it is beyond any 

 reasonable doubt that the Castletown pack was no 

 longer in existence, for in that case Sir Fenton 

 would scarcely be contemplating hunting another 

 pack of hounds so near as Donadea. What became 

 of the Castletown pack I have been unable to ascer- 

 tain, but they were probably sold out of the country 

 at Mr Conolly's death. In all the circumstances, I 

 have no hesitation whatever in regarding Sir Fenton 

 Aylmer as the founder of the present Kildare Hunt, 

 and the hounds he describes, which he had appa- 

 rently just got into working order in 1798, as the 

 original parents of the existing pack. There is con- 

 firmation of this proposition in the fact that when 

 the first existing records of the Kildare Hunt Club 

 begin in the year 1804 Sir Fenton was master of the 

 Kildare hounds. 



Before passing on to consider those records I 

 may perhaps mention here a recollection of Mr 

 Robert Kennedy of Baronsrath, which is the last 

 memory of the great hunting tradition which once 



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