HUNTING THE IRISH RED DEER 
THE WILD DEER OF THE IRISH MOUNTAINS IS A GLORIOUS ANIMAL. WHOSE BEAUTY 
AND EXTREME WARINESS MAKE HIM A NOTEWORTHY OBJECT OF A HUNTER’S AMBITION 
By SIR THOMAS H. GRATTAN-ESMONDE M. P. 
The author, ready for a day on the moors 
F or several years I have been 
reading Forest and Stream 
I with its fascinating stories of 
North American hunting. These 
I stories appeal to me all the more 
, strongly, inasmuch as I too have 
felt the irresistible call of the 
wilds. I have followed your forest 
tracks; navigated your lakes and 
; rivers; climbed your mountains; 
' “called” your moose; and hunted 
' your deer and caribou. And as 
j one who has lived the life best 
I worth living — the life of the hunter 
in many countries, I appreciate the 
service your admirable magazine 
! has rendered, and will I trust long 
' continue to render, to the cause 
of real genuine sport. 
The primeval hunting instinct is 
I not the monopoly of any race or 
I of any country. It is the attribute 
of the best types of manhood, even 
in our super-civilized days. The 
hunter, whatever his nationality, 
belongs to the most widely distrib- 
1 uted brotherhood of men in exist- 
ence; a brotherhood whose natural 
j inclination leads them to help and 
I to inform one another. And there- 
1 fore I think, that your readers may 
care to know something of one kind 
I of hunting in my country, which 
I can compare for interest and dif- 
ficulty with anything of its na- 
ture in the world. We have 
neither moose, nor Virginia deer, 
nor caribou in Ireland; but in our 
wild Irish red deer we have a glorious 
animal, whose beauty and extreme wari- 
ness make him a noteworthy object of a 
hunter’s ambition. 
’ Unhappily he is very scarce and is be- 
coming scarcer. Rut in the mountains 
of Kerry and in the Western district of 
Mayo he is still to be found in his prim- 
itive state. And it is into this latter 
region that I shall ask those of your 
readers, who covet an Irish red deer’s 
head, to follow me. The stalk is not an 
easy one, but it is well worth the effort. 
O UR headquarters are a comfortable 
stone-built cottage, named Altna- 
brocky (in English, The Hill of the 
Badgers), standing in the centre of a 
wide stretch of bog, or barren, as they 
would call it in Canada, on a bend of 
the little river of the same name. We 
have laid in a stock of provisions of 
the usual Canadian type; and we have 
besides a plentiful supply of turf for 
fuel, cut from the barren outside. 
The party consists of the keeper, or 
guide, William McAndrew, a thorough 
sportsman; a friend of mine, a 
notable fisherman, whose chief con- 
cern however is with trout and 
salmon, so I leave him to his fish- 
ing and he leaves the deer to me; 
and Mrs. McAndrew, the keeper’s 
wife, an estimable lady, who un- 
dertakes our housekeeping, and 
whose excellent potato-cakes (a 
kind of scone or damper), are tri- 
umphs of art. 
The river is about 100 yards 
off. We have to ford it every time 
we get to the moor. If the water 
is too high, we cross it on the 
back of an admirable donkey, 
whose main occupation seems to be 
carrying people across and back 
again. When the donkey grows 
tired of playing Charon, he wan- 
ders off and until he reappears 
there is no crossing the river dry- 
shod. Sometimes there is no cross- 
ing the river at all. It has grown 
to the size of a flood with the rain 
from the hills, and its brown swirl- 
ing waters are nearly up to the 
cottage door. Then, as after a 
South African rain storm, we must 
wait until the water runs away. 
When we cross the river we find 
ourselves on an undulating barren, 
that stretches away miles and 
miles to the North and East; while 
to the West it rises to Sleive Cor, 
a gaunt grey hill some 2000 feet 
high, or rather to his foothills, 
about five miles away. Sleive Cor 
was a volcano some time or other. He 
has three craters with high semi-circular 
cliffs behind them, about halfway up 
his flank. Each of these craters has its 
lake, and each lake its differing type 
of trout to tempt the angler. 
T WO of these lakes have waterfalls, 
emptying themselves right down the 
sheer faces of the cliffs. Their 
silver threads are plainly visible from 
the cottage when the sun shines on them. 
The foothills were evidently thrown out 
Copyr.cht, 1919, by Forest and Stream Publishing Company. 
