THE village of Laurencetown was heaving with hunt followers and visitors to welcome in the New Year at Darragh and Cathal Pardy’s Bar. The East Galway Hunt must be the best kept secret in hunting, with a young huntsman, Eoghan McCabe, who can really cross country and amateur hunt staff who are all top riders. It is a nursery for young event riders and horses. The catalyst is Ralph Conroy of Milchem Equestrian Centre, whose coaching has been responsible for a remarkable 14 European medals in eventing. Ralph may not be a master in the hunt, but he is certainly the master of eventing in this area - and indeed further afield. Interestingly, a former master and huntsman Michael Higgins (1970-73) represented Ireland in eventing. Ralph was one of the founders of the Western Region of Eventing Ireland, and the hunt holds a joint hunt ball with the association. On the day, former Irish Eventing High Performance Manager and double Olympian Dag Albert joined the hunting field with his wife Liz. He has had major success in 2025 leading the Irish Team to a European team silver medal and three riders to sit in the Top 25 of the FEI eventing world rankings. Graduates of Conroy’s hunting training were Irish international and World team silver and European bronze medallist Cathal Daniels, European silver medallist Godfrey Gibbons, his sister Katie and Jason Doerflinger, who won a young eventer class at the Dublin Horse Show. Doerflinger also campaigned Conroy’s Milchem Giovanni, by Olive Broderick’s stallion Tyson, who was sold recently at the Go for Gold Sale for €80,000. Other top event riders hunting were Becky Scott, Duncan McFadyen and Oisin McDonagh, and the list just goes on. Dag and Liz Albert’s son Thomas was happy to follow on a Gator, as was his daughter Maja, who is waiting for her hand to get better after an accident with a young horse before she gets back to serious riding again.

My guide was Darragh Kenny, who owns a building business in Perth, Australia. The call of the hunting field knows no bounds, however, and he is home for a month and will be hunting somewhere most days. He also plans to get out with a few Australian packs when he returns down under. It was great to meet up with Linda Kenny and her daughter Alex, as we recalled some of the many Kennys that hunted with the East Galways like Jack, a legend in his own lifetime.