RESEARCHING the history of one’s sport can be very rewarding as little did I know during my history classes in school that Daniel O’Connell, known as The Liberator, was a hunting man.

I explored it further when I was given an 80-year-old unfinished manuscript on the Kerry Beagle written by the great Irish writer, poet and The Irish Field hunting and horse show correspondent, Stanislaus Lynch. I since edited the manuscript and published a book in 2017 titled ‘In Search of the Kerry Beagle’. Another interesting fact is that the only native hounds of Ireland are the Kerry Beagle and the Irish Wolfhound.