THE Fingal Harriers opened their season at their usual venue The Man O War Bar & Restaurant near Skerries in north Co Dublin. It is probably the oldest roadhouse in Ireland dating back to 1595 and is situated on the old Dublin to Drogheda road where the granite mileage stones can still be seen along the road to this day. National figures such as Theobald Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmett and Daniel O’Connell dined there in the past. But today the proprietor Martin McNulty, who was field-master on the day, worked as a chef in the prestigious five-star Claridges Hotel in Mayfair, London, and cooked alongside Michelin star chefs such as Anton Mosimann and Marco Pierre White and was head chef at Waterford Castle Hotel. He specialises in quality steaks and seafood, all based on natural produce from the area. The seafood chowder is a meal in itself!

It is a popular equestrian area with a high density of both sport horses and racehorses with trainers like Ado McGuinness who was a former whipper-in of the Fingal Harriers, Karl Thornton and Dave Harvey. The Fingal hunt country, similar to other packs, has contracted in the last 25 years. Meets such as Rathbeale Cross, Beaumont Bridge, Donabate, Mullafin, Balrath Cross and Donore are no longer hunted mainly because of development.