SIR JOHN KENNEDY, 1814-1841 



words, the odds on the fox in a sporting country 

 Hke the Kildare with a well-bred pack of hounds 

 was during the first half of the nineteenth century 

 precisely sixteen to five. 



The number of blank days, mostly described by 

 the Master as " very wet," was forty-three out 

 of twelve hundred and forty, or one in twenty- 

 nine days on average. The largest number of 

 blank days was in 1832. 1823, 1824, ^^^S and 183 1 

 had four each. Six other seasons had two only in 

 each; eight other seasons had one blank only, and 

 the years 1815, 1817, 1820, 1834 and 1837 had no 

 blanks at all. I close this old diary of Sir John 

 Kennedy with the conviction that it is the record 

 of a very remarkable era of sport which it would 

 be difficult to excel in any Hunt of the three king- 

 doms. I may add finally that the poultry fund was 

 collected in the field, and was highest in 1825 with 

 j£i99 2s. 4d., lowest in 1828 with £90 7s., and had 

 an average over fourteen years of £15^- 



In attaining the excellence of establishment and 

 organization which distinguished his Mastership, 

 there is no doubt that Sir John Kennedy was com- 

 pelled to make great calls upon his private means. 

 He was continually adding to the many coverts, 

 which at length converted the Kildare country into 

 the finest in the island, and a meeting of 1826 

 disclosed the manifest fact that the £600, which 



137 



