SIR JOHN KENNEDY, 1814-1841 



jumped out on to the lean-to roof, ran along the 

 wall, and so gained the garden. Here the terriers 

 took up the hot scent, and found the fox's way out, 

 up a cherry tree in the corner. 



With Sir John Kennedy's diary before me, with 

 its record of the plenty of foxes found and killed 

 during twenty-four years, it is strange to hear of a 

 difficulty of preserving. But such was the case 

 during the early years of his Mastership. Mr Robert 

 Kennedy well remembers the cause, and also the 

 means adopted by his father for effecting a cure. 

 Fox poaching was then a recognized profession, 

 made quite profitable in the Kildare country by a 

 ready market provided close at hand by the Ward 

 Union Hounds, and by a certain Dr Gregory, 

 who kept a pack of harriers and a private lunatic 

 asylum near Dublin. Mr John Kennedy decided to 

 act upon the sound maxim that a converted poacher 

 makes the best gamekeeper. The doyen of the fox- 

 stealing profession in the Kildare country was one 

 Dennis Garvin, whose central office was situated 

 at Ballymore Eustace, but whose agencies and 

 operations extended far from that spot. This worthy 

 Mr Kennedy enlisted as his chief earth warner, 

 an office which he held with distinction during the 

 Master's long reign and those of three successive 

 Masters, and fox stealing ceased in the Kildare 

 country as if by magic. 



K 129 



