HISTORY OF THE KILDARE HUNT 



were sure to repay liberally for their amuse- 

 ment." 



One of the many obligations laid upon the 

 Kildare Hunt by Mr John Kennedy, and one which 

 I personally appreciate very highly, was the keeping 

 of a record of every day's sport during the many 

 years of his Mastership. This is a record which 

 for continuity and completeness is, I should 

 imagine, rare among the annals of fox-hunting. 

 The present Sir John Kennedy has most kindly 

 placed at my disposal the hunting diary of his 

 grandfather, which begins on October 15, 1815, 

 and continues without the omission of a day until 

 February in 1839. ^^ consists of a hundred and one 

 folios of closely written MS., in which one may 

 learn the coverts drawn, the foxes found, and those 

 killed during twenty-four seasons, together with 

 accurate though brief particulars of every run of 

 the hounds throughout those seasons. Here, then, 

 is a record from which at the proper moment I 

 can give present members of the Hunt a resume 

 of the sport enjoyed by their grandfathers and 

 great-grandfathers, the number of days they hunt- 

 ed, the blank days they experienced and the pro- 

 portion of kills to finds during a quarter of a 

 century. I shall also be able to tell them how Mr 

 Kennedy was supported by the contributions of 

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