HISTORY

The Louth Foxhounds date back to 1817. The country now hunted dates to 1849 when the Fingal country was included.

THE LOUTH FOXHOUNDS

Chairman: Stephen Gunne

Masters: Edmond Mahony, Gerry Boylan, Joe Callan, Eamonn McGinn and Kieran Ryan.

Huntsman: Alan Reilly

Whipper-in: John Sullivan, Oisin Tuite, Townley Angel and Christopher Rogers

Joint-honorary secretaries: Jane Angel and Una Gunne

THE meet of the Louth Foxhounds was at Dolly Mitchell’s pub on the Drogheda to Slane Road beside the River Maddock. It is difficult to miss it – just look out for two feet, complete with Wellington boots, of an upturned mannequin sticking out of a barrel outside the pub. Dolly’s Annual Game Night was a popular event and drew locals and even people across the Irish Sea for a feast of everything wild. It was definitely not a night for vegans, what with such an assortment of game pies, smoked freshwater eel, pigeon in sourdough with aged gouda cheese, rabbit, pheasant, duck noodle and oyster sauce, ox tongue, venison lasagne, woodcock and snipe to name but a short selection of dishes. It is also a hub for Irish music, table quiz nights, the Tullyallen Tractor Run, GAA, Rossin Rovers Football Club and marking occasions like christenings, births, deaths and marriages. Sadly these types of pubs, which were always at the centre of many parishes, are getting rarer in Ireland as so many have closed down.

I always enjoy a poor scenting day, as you know if the work has been put in by the huntsman during autumn hunting, then hounds will respond to the elements. It is always a pleasure to see huntsman Alan Reilly with his smashing pack of Old English Hounds anytime at work. Reilly has put a huge amount of work into breeding a ‘crack pack’, travelling the length of the country to find the best and most suitable bloodlines that win consistently at all the major hound shows. In one year alone, he won five classes at the Irish Masters of Foxhounds National Hound Show at Stradbally, featuring prominently also in the Championships.

Most horseboxes were at the meet at 10.30am, and Reilly and his whippers-in, John Sullivan and Oisin Tuite, were gone on the dot with Sullivan’s wife and former point-to-point rider Linzi riding up front. Joint masters Eamonn McGinn, Joe Callan and Gerry Boylan were on hand while their fellow joint-masters Tattersalls chairman Edmond Mahony and Kieran Ryan were on other duties. Boylan’s company Boylan Print in Drogheda prints what is often referred to as the Irish equestrian bible - The Irish Field Directory. Boylan was hunting with his wife Louise and their daughter Abigail who was hunting the well-known dun Connemara pony Harvey. The pony is now 19 years of age and he hunted for 12 seasons from the time Olivia Duff of the Headford Arms Hotel in Kells bought him as a three-year-old. Now Abigail has hunted him for four seasons, and he is keen as ever.

Jamie O’Rourke, whose father Paul hunted the Fingal Harriers for 10 seasons, was hunting a smashing grey Irish Draught, and he can cross-country just like his father used to on a great hunter called Eubank who, I should well remember, as I whipped in to him for a number of seasons. His grandfather and Meath whipper-in ‘Speedy’ rode an exceptional horse named Question Mark, later hunted by Bryan Beggan, a son of Fingal master Brian.

Others hunting were Paula Finnegan, Anne Lawson, Serena Williams, Paula Egan, Aidan Hand, Rob Kenny, Joe Marron, Tommy McKenna, Tom McCourt, a former master of the Oriels, while Edel Tuite and Alan Keogan were visiting from the Ballymacads. Marnie Crearer was schooling an Irish Draught/Connemara cross by Cappa Casanova for Paul Dolan whose father Commdt. Martin Dolan was a member of the Blue Huzzars which was the Presidential mounted escort at the Dublin Horse Show.

The car followers were Patsy Reilly, Hughie McKeever, John McKenny, Stuart Lawson and Martin Cromwell who follows most of the north Leinster packs, and Donna and Brian Meegan. With the advances in digital photography, many hunting packs have their own enthusiastic photographers following meets regularly like Bernard Hand in the Meaths, Mark Wiseman in the Ballymacads, Tommy Sinnott the Wexford hunts and Alan Leonard in the Galway Blazers. Declan Conagham of the Louths is no exception as he is out at every meet, and has taken some terrific shots that he makes available to the followers, and many have also appeared in exhibitions and on hunt post cards and calendars.

SAINT PATRICK’s FIRE

The first draw beside the meet in a small plantation was blank. But as hounds moved on to a nearby wood, we could see the long narrow hoof marks of deer in the maize. They travel back and forward from the Hill of Slane in large numbers. It was there that Saint Patrick is reputed to have lit the first Pascal Fire in defiance of High King Laoire that became the Celtic Centre of Christianity and Learning, and contains Megalithic Standing Stones that date from the Stone Age that ended between 8,700 BC and 2,000 BC. In the background, a large flock of Piper Swans were grazing and were a picture as they took flight.

Drawing a large plantation, a brace and a half were on the move. Joint-master Joe Callan spotted one going away and whipper-in Oisin Tuite marked another away on the far side. The remaining fox gave hounds a good run in the plantation before breaking cover and a slow hunt began on poor scent with the fox having the clear advantage. Followers had some nice clean ditches to negotiate and Linzi Sullinvan, Jamie O’Rourke, Marnie Crearer and Joe Callan gave some nice jumping displays.

The pack worked tirelessly up the field of maize, and scent picked up as they crossed onto grass and along the ditches where the huntsman showed rewarding patience while the pack picked at the line, speaking and then silence repeated over and over. They were a picture of total concentration as they crossed a poor scenting line across the road and picked up better over the sown ground towards the quarry where they ran left-handed for another 15 minutes through a small plantation and in a circle back towards the quarry where the fox had time to rest up and look back. But the pack had him moving again, always very steady, never giving up and over a few more fields and marked him with fantastic voice in a gully near the road.

The huntsman wasted no time crossing the Slane Road and drew in the back of The Whole Hogg in Rathmaiden, a farm that rears free-range Tamworth pigs but nothing there, so onto Grangegeeth Hill. Dairy farmer John McKenna of Mooretown, who was hosting a meet of the Louths at the weekend, stopped to take in the activity. There were great exchanges of hunting stories between him and Paul O’Rourke especially about the day Paul’s father Speedy threw his jacket over five stands of wire and left it there as he galloped away on his fantastic hunter Question Mark determined to stay with the Meath Foxhounds on a run of eight miles to Ardee!

John and his father Sean, a keen racehorse owner, maintains many old fashioned stone-faced coverts on their farm and makes sure that foxes are not disturbed and live in harmony with his herd of Friesians. Meanwhile, Reilly and his pack had a brace and a half on the run with hounds hunting left-handed and then back right-handed over the side of Grangegeeth Hill and over Herlihy’s, Paul McGuire’s and across the road where they marked him in furze where the huntsman blew for home.

It was a challenging day for the huntsman and the pack, but they never lost concentration and were rewarded. The hounds that stood out were mostly home-bred hounds by Louth Topper, Louth Randall some Waterford bloodlines and Brosna Ton Ton.