Joint-Master David McCarthy over one of what sporting artist Snaffles called “The Biggest Walls.” / Noel Mullins photoA meet of the Galway Blazers around the medieval walled town of Athenry, County Galway in the heart of the hunt country is not to be missed. Before traffic congested the town centre, meets were traditionally held at Higgins’ Bar. Masters and huntsmen would be served a stirrup cup by the proprietor Brendan Higgins who, with his sister Mary Josephine (my mother), hunted with the pack.
The well known painting by Simon Coleman RHA (portrait painter of Irish Church leaders and Presidents) of the late Lady Molly Cusack-Smith was set in Higgins’ Bar and hung there for many years. Lady Molly hunted the Blazer hounds during World War II and later was Master and huntsman of her own pack, the Bermingham and North Galway. The painting, which shows Lady Molly in fully hunting livery sitting on a stool at the counter, now hangs on the wall of her home Bermingham House, in Tuam.
Lady Molly Cusack-Smith at Higgins’ Bar, painted by Simon Coleman RHAToday’s meets are held at The Raheen Woods Hotel and at Athenry Castle, built circa 1250 by Meyler de Bermingham in a style known as the School of the West, which was the transition between Romanesque and Gothic styles.
Hunt followers will be familiar with the works of the English sporting and war artist Charlie Johnson Payne (1884-1967), universally known as Snaffles, whose two best known Irish hunting illustrations are Biggest Walls and Great Banks. His work is sought after by hunt followers all over the world. Biggest Walls was sketched a few miles from Athenry near current Joint-Master Michael MacDonagh’s home at Hollypark, and close to Dunsandle the home of Major Bowes Daly who was Master and huntsman of the Blazers in the 1930s and 40s. Snaffles was visiting the Blazers and hunting a horse belonging to Mrs Marjorie Waller. Hounds found straight away, but Snaffles being completely taken with the latticework of stone walls which was a new experience for him, stopped and took out his sketchbook and pencilled an outline of the picture that was to become one of the best known in the foxhunting world. In the picture are Diana Daly, Brigadier Dominick Browne, Snaffles, Henry Smith and Mrs Waller.
“Biggest Walls” by Snaffles. (Poster size reproductions of this painting are available from the link above.)
Athenry is also the subject of Ireland’s most popular sporting anthem, “The Fields of Athenry.”
The recent Athenry meet at the Raheen Woods Hotel brought back other memories of the Daly brothers Chris and Eugene who ran an equestrian centre literally next door. The brothers produced beautifully turned out hirelings for the Blazers’ visitors from all over the world until the 1960s. Up to a dozen horses would leave the yard on a hunting morning to hack the ten to twenty miles to meets in various parts of the hunt county, hunt all day, and hack home that night.
Galway Blazers huntsman Tom Dempsey leaving the meet at Athenry / Noel Mullins photoFormer huntsman Michael Dempsey, who manages the hunt country, is joined in the Mastership by Dr Rose Dempsey, Liam Clancy, Michael MacDonagh, David McCarthy (whose father Jack hunted with the Blazers), and Vincent Shields who is also Joint-Master of the East Galway Foxhounds and the Roscommon Harriers. He was riding his favourite Irish Draught mare Lady Bellville. Janet Coveney who is grounded temporarily is the hunt chairman. Hunting hounds since 1998 is Tom Dempsey. Whipping-in to Tom are Jason O’Donnell (professional) and J.J. Dempsey (honorary). They have fifty-six couple of hounds in kennels, and they hunt the doghound and bitch packs on alternate days, three days a week.
The huntsman was very complimentary about the wall builders Sean Feeney and Tom Joyce both from Grange in Athenry when he said that, “They are worth their weight in gold, not alone for their work in keeping the country stock proof, but for the excellent way they get on with landowners.” The countryman is Mickey Shaughnessey who looks after the terriers and the coverts.
Joint-Master Dr Rose Dempsey and well known Field Master Willie Leahy were sidelined with rib injuries, so Kevin Dempsey and Johnny Geoghegan were on Field Master duty. While membership is declining in some hunt clubs, the Blazers are getting new members like Bill Holmes of Holmestead Saddlery whose store in Kildare was temporarily closed due to flooding, but will have a major reopening sale shortly, and Davey Hanlon both coincidently members of the Kildares and the South County Dublin hunts, who like to get down to the Blazers on Tuesdays. Also from Kildare was Albert Broad who works in Ferran’s Stud which is part of Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Stud Farms racing and breeding organisation, Fran O’Callaghan from the Muskerry and Aidan O’Connell were visiting also. Tilman Anhold who runs Horse Holiday Farm in Sligo has been making the journey to hunt with the Blazers for nearly thirty years. Amongst the locals were Gerry Nevin, Niall Earls, Mary McInerney, May Ryan, farrier Erick Conway, and Paddy MacDonagh, a competent young horseman who broke and produced over forty horses last year. His younger brother Tim is interested in hounds. Also out were Ken Karr, Jonathon Walsh, William Donlon, Ella Coffey, Christine Rabbitt, Eithne O’Connor, and Mary Flaherty. Anthony Costello who trains point-to-pointers and produces hunters was hunting with his nephew Ian Moloney on his pony Jack. Costello’s late father Jimmy hunted the County Clare Hounds, and his uncle John Willie Costello who was out on foot hunted the Sligo Harriers.
It was an extremely difficult day for the huntsman, as a dark sky with rain overhead means no scent in Galway. But the huntsman produced a little bit of magic by acting, in football terms, as an extra man. He stayed close to his bitch pack and intervened only when they were in difficulty.
The omens were not good at the first draw in Caheroyn Wood as hounds struggled to hold any scent. But then they opened and with the huntsman and whipper-in at either end of the covert a fox broke that four couple hunted to the outskirts of the covert. Despite the huntsman blowing them on, they could not hold the line. He decided to try it again as some hounds seem to be still speaking, and there was a possibility of a second fox.
They were in luck. After the first fox ran for Knockbrack it transpired that there were another two brace still in the covert. The second fox went to ground in the bank at the side of the railway line as the third fox set his mask for the Commons and disappeared. The fourth fox broke covert but when he saw hounds were onto his pal, the fifth fox, he decided that it was a better option to return to the wood and let the action continue elsewhere. It was a help that both Damian Carthy and Christy O’Loughlin from Loughrea, although nearly running out of fingers as they stood on the hill, were keeping count on the number of foxes!
Hounds hunted the last fox towards the Athenry to Galway railway line and into Killkellys left-handed towards the town through Divilly’s Wood and sharp right-handed, before crossing the Commons through Martin Rabbitts running parallel to the Tuam Road. With a gate locked and no time to lose to keep with his pack, the huntsman jumped a substantial solid double stone wall onto the main road which was like landing on glass, followed by whipper-in Jason O’Donnell, Joint-Masters Michael MacDonagh and David McCarthy, and visitors Fran O’Callaghan and Albert Broad. They all had some type of studs in; otherwise they would have been upended upon landing.
Meanwhile the fox turned again right-handed before running parallel along the New Line Road from Monivea to Tuam. He crossed the railway line in the direction of Knockbrack where he turned right again and went to ground near the Reservoir on top of the hill for a really nice run of over an hour.
The next draw was in the Sandpits at Francis Coyne’s, and despite the covering of furze and the comfort of the sand that foxes enjoy, surprisingly it was blank. But the covert on the hill at Pulloch did not disappoint as there was a brace of foxes in it. Two couple of hounds were on, and in the patchy scent they brought on the rest of the pack. Hounds hunted for Scott’s Wood and looked like crossing the Cartymore Road but instead their fox turned right-handed by the Monument and then back to Pat Kennedy’s and across the road into Martin Walsh’s where they lost in the stubble fields after a nice sharp run of twenty minutes.
Scott’s Wood surprisingly was blank, so with light fading and a downpour of rain arriving, the huntsman blew for home. It was cracking day’s hunting with Tom Dempsey and his hounds producing an afternoon’s entertainment that was most unexpected given the poor scenting conditions.
Posted February 9, 2012
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Fran O’Callaghan / Noel Mullins photo