3 



In selecting the Curraghmore, I do so for three reason?, \iz. : — 

 (a) I know all about it. 

 (6) It was the premier pack in Ireland at the time it was stopped 



by the Land League in October, 1881. 

 (c) Because it no longer exists. 



In the year 1840, Henry, third Marquis of Waterford, gave up hunting 

 in England, where he had made for himself a reputation as a rider 

 to hounds second only to that of Thomas Assheton Smith, John Musters, 

 and George Osbaldeston, as the annals of Leicestershire, Warwickshire, 

 and Northamptonshire can testify. His lordship then came to reside 

 at Curraghmore, there to live the life of an Irish nobleman upon his 

 ancestral property as many of his forefathers had done. 



The only foxhounds in the co. Waterford at that time were a 

 small, badly-sustained pack, of which the late Mr. William Fitzgerald 

 was Master, and these gave, in a rough-and-ready way, tolerably good 

 sport. As they had been established for some years, and were popular 

 with the gentry. Lord Waterford made no proposition at that time, 

 that I ever heard of, to take over these hounds. 



Captain Jacob of Mobarnane, in the co. Tipperary, then owned the 

 ^Grove Hounds, which he had purchased some years previously from 

 Mr. William Barton of Grove, near Fethard, and he hunted the 

 "Tipperary country."^ 



Before making Curraghmore his fixed abode, Lord Waterford pur- 

 chased this pack from Captain Jacob, and took over his country. 

 With it came their huntsman, Johnny Ryan, whose father and grand- 

 father had hunted them in Mr. Barton's time. They were an excellent 

 lot, and very well bred ; but he augmented the pack by a large 

 importation from some of the then best kennels in England. 



His lordship rented Rockwell, near Cashel, and from there he 

 commenced to foxhunt Tipperary in the autumn of 1840. This he 

 did entirely at his own expense. 



He married, in May, 1842, Lady Louisa, daughter of Lord Stewart 

 de Rothesay, and after his marriage moved his hunting establish- 

 ment to Lakefield, near Fethard, where he and Lady Waterford 

 resided during the hunting season. 



I regret to have to record, on the authority of Mr. R. T. Vyner in 

 his Notitia Venatica, p. 9, that Lord Waterford was subjected to 

 much annoyance during some of the years he hunted Tipperary, 

 not alone by the receipt of several threatening letters, but upon 

 two occasions demoniacal attempts were made to poison his hounds. 

 The climax of this villainy was reached in the summer of 1844, 

 when the stables at Lakefield were set fire to, and it was with the 

 greatest difficulty that the occupants were saved. This last outrage 

 was attributed by some to a discharged servant, and by others to 



* Mr. Richard Burke has lately come to live at Grove, and has his pack 

 of foxhounds there, so that after a lapse of half a century the Tipperary 

 country is again hunted from there. 



