THE KERRY BREED. 
PLATE Yi. 
1. COW, Six Years’ Old, the property of the Right Honourable the Earl of Clare, from a Stock 
selected by the late Bishop of Killaloe. 
2. BULL, Five Years’ Old, the property of Hugh Palliser Hickman, Esq. of Fenlowe, in the 
County of Clare, selected from the mountain tract of the North of Kerry. 
The native breeds of Irish cattle may be divided into those of the mountains, moors, and bogs, and those of the richer plains, 
with intermixed breeds resulting from the union of different races, foreign or native. The mountain breeds approach to the 
characters of the ancient White Forest Breed in a sufficiently near degree to indicate a common descent with the cattle of the 
mountains of Scotland and Wales and the high lands of Devon. 
Of the native breeds of Ireland, one very peculiar and well defined is derived from the mountainous county of Kerry, the 
most westerly land in Europe, and remarkable for the humidity of its climate. The Kerry cattle of the mountains are generally 
black, with a white ridge along the spine, a character agreeing with the account which older writers have given of the Uri of the 
woods of Poland. They have often also a white streak upon the belly, but they are of various colours, as black, brown, and 
mixed black and white, or black and brown. Their horns are fine, long, and turned upward at the points. Their skins are soft 
and unctuous, and of a fine orange tone, which is visible about the eyes, the ears, and the muzzle. Their eyes-are lively and bright, 
and although their size is diminutive, their shape is good. 
These cattle are hardy, and capable of subsisting on scanty fare. Although stunted in size when brought from the bogs and 
steril pastures on which they are reared, they make a wonderful advance in size, even though several years old, when supplied 
with suitable food. The fat of their beef is well mixed with the muscular parts, or, in technical language, marbled; and they 
fatten well in the inside, a character which renders them valuable to the butcher, and distinguishes them in a remarkable degree 
from the Long-horned Breeds of the lower country. 
But the peculiar value of the Kerry Breed is the adaptation of the females to the purposes of the domestic dairy. In milking 
properties the Kerry Cow, taking size into account, is equal or superior to any in the British Islands. It is the large quantity of 
milk yielded by an animal so small which renders the Kerry Cow so generally valued by the cottagers and smaller tenants of 
Ireland. She is frequently termed the Poor Man’s Cow, and she merits this appellation by her capacity of subsisting on such fare 
as he has the means to supply. 
This fine little breed has been greatly neglected. Scarce any means have been used to produce a progressive development 
of form, by supplying proper nourishment to the breeding parents and the young, and no general care has been bestowed on 
preserving the purity of the stock. In almost every part of Ireland the breed has been crossed with the Long-horns, and a great 
proportion of the Cows of the country known under the name of Kerries are the result of crosses of this kind, and so have deviated 
in a greater or less degree from the native type, and almost always for the worse. 
A few honourable exceptions, however, exist to this too general neglect of the mountain dairy breed of Ireland. One attempt 
had succeeded to such a degree as to form a new breed, which partially exists with the characters communicated to it. It has 
been termed the Dexter Breed. It was formed by the late Mr Dexter, agent to Maude Lord Hawwarden. This gentleman 
is said to have produced his curious breed by selection from the best of the mountain cattle of the district. He communicated to 
it a remarkable roundness of form and shortness of legs. The steps, however, by which this improvement was effected, have not 
been sufficiently recorded, and some doubt may exist whether the original was the pure Kerry, or some other breed proper to the 
central parts of Ireland now unknown, or whether some foreign blood, as the Dutch, was not mixed with the native race. One cha¬ 
racter of the Dexter Breed is frequently observed in certain cattle of Ireland, namely, short legs, and a small space from the knee 
and hock to the hoofs. This has probably given rise to a saying sometimes heard, of “ Tipperary beef down to the heels.” How¬ 
ever the Dexter Breed has been formed, it still retains its name, and the roundness and depth of carcass which distinguished it. 
When any individual of a Kerry drove appears remarkably round and short legged, it is common for the country people to call it 
