HISTORY OF THE KILDARE HUNT 



chief of them during sixty years. Bryan Flanagan 

 of Downshire was famous during Sir John Ken- 

 nedy's time, and was naturally laudator temporis 

 acti. In later years, when Mr Robert would tell 

 him of the modern brilliant runs, he would con- 

 tend that the foxes had deteriorated, because Sir 

 John would hunt a Downshire fox for hours and 

 lose him in the end. Bryan had ignored altogether 

 the improvement in speed and endurance brought 

 to the pack by such breeding as practised by Mr 

 Wm La Touche, while the foxes had naturally 

 stood still. 



Paddy Keogh was another famous earthstopper 

 of the earlier regime who watched over the interests 

 of the Hunt at the Punchbowl Covert. On one 

 occasion, when the hounds were going to draw 

 the covert, a tremendous hornblowing was heard 

 coming from out the gorse. Mr Kennedy rode on 

 to ascertain the cause of the clamour. He found 

 Paddy walking all round the covert and blowing 

 a cow's horn with all his lung power. " What on 

 earth are you doing? " asked Mr Kennedy. " Your 

 soul to Glory, I'm waking me foxes," was the reply. 



One year Paddy had no foxes, and some one 

 gave him a fox that he had bought from Dycer's 

 the then Sewell's of Dublin. That fox found out 

 every hole within a mile of the covert and always 

 managed to get to ground. Whenever a hound 

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