SIR JOHN KENNEDY, 1814-1841 



from the Wicklow Mountains for another good 

 thirty-five, was obviously one sufficiently extensive 

 for the energies of one Master and one pack of 

 hounds. 



The diversity of the country hunted, though 

 adding to the interest of the sport, did not decrease 

 the ordinary difficulties of maintaining a hunting 

 establishment, and of mounting adequately a staif 

 of hunt servants. Though a great part of the Kil- 

 dare country provided, and provides, some of the 

 best and most extensive stretches of turf in the 

 British Isles, there is great variety of going in other 

 parts of the district. In the north are very wide 

 ditches and small banks as almost the only fences, 

 while in the south, or Thursday country, are high 

 upstanding banks with frequent doubles. In the 

 Athy country also are considerable stretches of 

 arable; great tracts of bog like that of the Bog of 

 Allen intersect and break up some of the good turf 

 going; and in the east is a mountain country rising 

 in places to a height of over three thousand feet, 

 with great wastes of moorland, and breeding a race 

 of stout hill foxes, which at times tax the energies 

 of the hardiest of hounds and horses and the most 

 enthusiastic of riders. In such a country the meets 

 were necessarily far apart from even so central a 

 point as Johnstown, and it was in such a country 

 that Mr John Kennedy undertook to show sport 



107 



