300 



feats recorded, and, with all the advantages they have now over the men 

 of old, they may find more than a nut to crack in beating the records of 

 Gecrge Osbaldeston, Edward Budd, Captains Ross and Barclay, or 

 Lord Kennedy. 



Long ago, and up to a few years since, many hunts had " runners." 

 These were men deeply imbued with the love of sport, and they at 

 times performed mosc wonderful feats of pedestrianism. I remember 

 some of them myself with the Tipperary and Curraghmore. Tbey 

 generally wore a cast-otf red coat and hunting cap and ran barefooted. 

 They seemed to know every field in the country and every line a fox 

 •would take, and marvellous was it how these half-clad, half -fed men 

 would turn up at the end of a long run. Extraordinary are the stories 

 told of them, but none that I ever heard of comes near that which is 

 narrated in Sportascrapiana of one James West, who some sixty years 

 ago was in the habit of running with the Berkeley hounds. He is 

 accredited with having made in one day " a pretty little run of about 

 a hundred and twenty-six miles ! " 



Be that performance a fact or a fancy, I shall record a feat of pedes- 

 trianism which I know to be a fact. My step-brother, the late Mr. Joha 

 Richards of Grange, in the County Wexford, had in his employment 

 a gamekeeper named Xickey Conoran. In the year 1855 this man, then 

 nearly fifty years old, had occasion to go to Waterford, which from his 

 house was twenty-four Irish miles. He started at 4 a,m. and walked to 

 New Ross, a distance of nearly twelve miles. There he expected to 

 catch the steamer which plied daily to Waterford and back, but he was 

 late. He then walked to Waterford — twelve miles — did his business 

 there, which necessitated some two miles ; returned by steamer to New 

 Ross, and walked from there to Grange. At the entrance gate, about 

 9 p.m., he met my brother, who was going in search of his groom who 

 he feared had met with an accident, as he had not returned from Ennis- 

 corthy where he had gone with a hor=e in the morning. Conoran» 

 without a moment's hesitation, joined his master and walked to Eanis- 

 corthy, a distance of eight Irish miles. They found the groom all right, 

 and straightway returned to Grange, where they arrived about 2 a.m.^ 

 Conoran all the way keeping up with my brother, who was a very good 

 walker. 



Thus, in the ordinary condition of a cottier tenant, and without the 

 least preparatioa, did Nickey Conoran, in twenty-two hours, walk some 

 fifty-two Irish mi]es,which equal sixty-six English. He had no rest, except 

 an hour and a half while oq board the steamer, which gives an average 

 of nearly three miles and a quarter per hour actual walking. He had 

 no refreshment except a very light dinner in Waterford about 2.0, for 

 nothing could be got in Enniscorthy. The hardy old fellow told me he 

 was not a bit the worse for the walk, and the only inconvenience he 

 suffered was that on the return journey from Enniscorthy, having no 

 matches, he could not get a smoke, and upon going to a house for a 

 light, he found the family wailing over the corpse of an old woman they 

 were " waking," so he bolted without efifecting his purpose. 



