WHAT a pleasure it was to visit the Wicklow Foxhounds at a meet I know so well, Jack Kavanagh’s Golden Anchor Bar near Clone Beach, an area known as the ‘Sunny South East’. There was a great atmosphere at the meet with a huge number of mounted followers of all ages, and as many more following by road.

This is not just a hunt club, it is a whole community that comes together each week to enjoy crossing the best of natural country. It is a conduit for families to network and support each other and they are equally adept at raising funds for much needed causes, whether it be a local school or somebody who, for economic or medical reasons, has had a setback in their lives.

An example of this community spirit was best demonstrated last July when the huntsman Brendan Kavanagh gave a life-sustaining gift to his brother Liam when he donated a kidney to him in Beaumont Hospital. While convalescing, his wife Yvonne and children Frank, Doireanna and Cait managed all their home and school schedules. Brendan’s other brother John and kennelman Larry Kavanagh, together with a number of members, made sure hounds and horses were exercised and ready for the season. Brendan was remarkably back within three months and wears a kidney protector when hunting.

Many of the followers are horse producers and breeders, and involved with the local Castletown/Liam Mellows GAA Club who field men and ladies football and hurling teams. The chairman is Jack Kavanagh who owns the Golden Anchor Bar. It was really special to have two Wexford Minor hurlers hunting, Doran Daly O’Toole and Conor Fanning.

I was delighted to meet sheep farmer Mervyn Sunderland that I first met many years ago at the Wicklows when he was leading a young 10-year-old girl on a grey pony. That girl was hunting and so was her own daughter, now a teenager!

Another person was Ken O’Mahony, ace cameraman who travels the world on assignments in war and peace zones for national television. He recently released another documentary we both made on the Wicklows’ that can be seen on Horsin’ Around. A recent assignment took him to Canada filming the indigenous people. He is an equally accomplished photographer that you see featured regularly in The Irish Field pages.

Huntsman and Masters

The joint-masters Frank Redmond and Tom Kelly were hunting. Huntsman Brendan Kavanagh does an incredible job providing consistent sport, and is always well mounted. On this occasion he was mounted on a hunter rising five years old (by Lansdowne) which he has hunted since a three-year-old, bred by show horse producer John Roche of Assagart, Co Wexford, a past winner of The Irish Field Breeders’ Championship and the Laidlaw Cup at Dublin Horse Show.

Whipping-in was Patrick Goland, another good man across country. One can immediately see the pleasure Larry Kavanagh gets from producing a top class pack of hounds with 13 ½ couple, mainly home-bred mixed pack, on the day. He does a first class job with the support of his wife Marie and daughters Abby and Macala. Brendan and Larry like a mix of Old English and Modern hounds, many are first and second season with Ballymacad and Tipperary bloodlines.

They focus on voice and drive, making incredible music as we later experienced. Brendan’s brother John is the road whipper-in, equipped with a walkie-talkie, and was supported by Lee and Annette Cushe.

Hunt chairman Doran O'Toole flying a drain at the Wicklow Foxhounds meet at The Golden Anchor \ Noel Mullins

Followers

Hunt chairman Doran O’Toole and his son Robbie were hunting, as well as honorary treasurer Peter Sommers, veterinarian Austin Fanning and his son Conor, field-master Brian Fortune, and Simon Kelly who travelled from Cork to hunt. Also on horseback were Mary Codd, Abbey Kavanagh, Jessica Murphy, siblings Casey, Carrie, and Ryan McDonald on three smashing grey Irish Draughts, Jessica O’Leary, Rob Watson, Edwina O’Conner on a French-bred Connemara pony hunting with her daughter Ciara. The youngest was Cian Fleming (6) on his pony Hooper out with his father Shane. Also out were Doireann Dolan, Molly Graham, Kitty and Elsa Byrne, Lilly Gallagher, Skye Howard Hill, Aubrey Chapman, master of the Glendoran Island, and his father George, a noted show-horse producer.

Following were local farmer James Grandy, Lisa Fleming, Catherine Bergin, Terry Daly, who is very involved in the Wicklow Pony Club, keeping one eye on her daughter Skye who was crossing country in style on her Irish Draught, and master farrier Conal Gallagher, who conducts courses for the Irish Horse Welfare Trust. Patrick ‘Doc’ Whittey was with his daughter Emer and took a photo of the two of us to send to our mutual friend horse trainer Ado McGuinness in Rush.

Also in contact was Mary Dunne, Cathy arton, Niamh Grimes, Sammy Wolmington and his son Nicholas, Bria Speakman, former huntsman Tom Bergin and Stephen McDonald, a well-known producer of Connemara Ponies, whose three children were hunting.

Hunting

The first draw had hounds away that fast that followers were caught off guard as hounds found in former kennelman Tom Berrigan’s farm. Hounds were gone in a flash across the Clone road and marked eventually in Sean Cousins’.

The next draw usually consists of two hunts drawn in different directions, one of which is hunted later in the season. Hounds screamed away on a fox into the country that was not warned, so frantic phone calls were made to advise farmers that the hounds were coming their way. But the huntsman need not have worried as two of the largest farms were owned by former masters Peter Donnelly and Philip Ivanoff, and the rest were great supporters of the hunt and understood that the fox usually makes his own decisions.

A cracking hunt followed from Murray’s, but the location of the Stirrup Cup had to be hastily changed.

Plan B was quickly implemented as the custodians of the Stirrup Cup - Jason Freeney, his wife Stephanie and Donal and Leone O’Sullivan - were determined to stage it somewhere but not sure just where. They packed the lot into the back of a jeep and moved with speed while coasting the pack who were flying and finally touched down after seven kilometres, setting it up on Tomna Healy road!

While the Stirrup Cup was in transit, hounds found in a marl hole in Murray’s. Marl is a thick soil made up of sedimentary rock and limestone that you get in Co Wexford. The pack crossed the road at Rooney’s Point and into Bobby Kavanagh’s and on to Stephenson’s, crossing Declan Murray’s. Here the pack checked, crossing a minor road where the huntsman was given the wrong line, not intentionally, but a few yards can make all the difference to an accurate pack. Crossing the road, the pack cast themselves in wide left-handed and right circles as the huntsman patiently let them work it out. But the line was further back so, with a quick toot on the hunting horn by Brendan, they responded and as he laid them on, they screamed away as they hit the line. I heard one bystander remark, ‘The hounds are going absolutely mental’! Another fox crossed in front of followers but he was in no hurry.

The pack raced on over Mick and Ann Kavanagh’s, into Declan Merrigan’s and onto Tom Shock’s, John Hogan’s, Peter Donnelly’s extensive farm by the Ahare River and Hyde Park, by hunt chairman Doran O’Toole’s and over the Moneygarron road, left-handed by Gregan’s and across another road by Keys and Colliers, and eventually marked him in Redmond’s of the Hollow. John Kavanagh, Lee and Annette Cushe were on the road with the trailer to collect hounds after a cracking hunt.

The followers washed off in the huge waves on Clone Beach, which soothes horses’ legs and cures any scrapes picked up during the day. Then back to the Golden Anchor Bar for hot soup, and to participate in ‘Split the Pot’, a weekly fundraiser organised by Peter Sommers and Seamus Kiloran where the winner gets half the pot and the other half goes to the hunt club!