204 IRISH SPORT AND SPORTSMEN. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



HUNTING IN ROSCOMMON. 



Is there not a charm in antiquity ? Old pictures, old 

 china, and, particularly, old port, how they please us ! 

 The girl of "sweet seventeen" enchants; and old 

 ladies — I beg pardon, women never grow old. The 

 youthful athlete challenges our admiration, but we 

 appreciate not the less those seniors whose seamed 

 faces and locks, stained with the dust of the road of life, 

 indicates old age. Respect age if you would command 

 respect. Pardonnez-moi, reader, I must hark back to 

 the subject of this chapter. Hunting in Roscommon 

 county is of such ancient date that it set me thinking 

 on antiquity, and caused me to regret that the old 

 French-Park Pack was not kept up, as it was in exist- 

 ence more than a century ago, and maintained by the 

 French family until 1859. The oldest record I have 

 found of the French-Park Foxhounds is when they were 

 presided over by Mr. John French, M.P. for Roscom- 

 mon in 1743: but hounds were kept in French-Park 

 for years before that. Mr. John French hunted 

 different parts of Ireland, according to arrange- 

 ment, and used for many seasons take the hotel in 

 Kilcock for a month, and hunt parts of Meath and 

 Kildare. This gentleman was drowned, cruising from 

 Dublin to Park-gate, in 1774. After his death the 



