HISTORY OF THE KILDARE HUNT 



pages, my information as to the origins of sport in 

 the Kildare country has been gathered with diffi- 

 culty from evidence, scrappy and fragmentary at 

 the best, and necessarily incomplete. From the 

 year 1804, however, I am on firmer ground. In that 

 year the first records of the Kildare Hunt Club 

 begin. These are contained in an old minute book 

 which records in a rather desultory and imperfect 

 manner the proceedings of the club, the result of its 

 ballots for election, the names of its committee and 

 honorary officials, and a meagre account of some of 

 their doings. The record was very imperfectly 

 kept, as is evident not only from the appearance 

 of the records themselves, but also from the com- 

 ment of some of the older members of the Hunt who 

 remembered the period and looked through them 

 later. They extend only to the year 1839, but short 

 and imperfect as they are, they at least present 

 some basis of fact and date upon which to continue 

 our undertaking, and they will give us a list, cer- 

 tainly incomplete, of the more prominent of former 

 members of the Kildare Hunt Club. 



The original minute book is still in the possession 

 of Sir John Kennedy at Johnstown, who has very 

 kindly placed it at my disposal and allowed me to 

 have it copied. The first entry is the record of a 

 meeting, on April 28, 1804, of eleven mem- 

 bers of the club for the purpose of electing candi- 

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