West Wicklow Senior Master and huntsman Rupert Macauley takes hounds to covert. / Noel Mullins photo
Well-known hunting author Willie Poole once said, “There is no landscape in the world that can’t be enhanced by a pack of hounds.” County Wicklow, known colloquially as the Garden of Ireland, has a reputation for beauty quite on its own. Add the foxhounds to a landscape of blue skies, sheep grazing in green fields, extensive plantations, and snow-capped hills, and the image describes perfectly my day with hounds from Pat Kavanagh’s Hampton Lodge Equestrian Centre at Brittas.
The West Wicklow Foxhounds were founded in 2009 by the current Master and huntsman Rupert Macauley. Charles O’Reilly joined him in the Mastership in the initial years, both having served as Masters of the Kildare Foxhounds. Christy Hart has now joined Macauley in the Mastership and also acts as Field Master. Neil Kinsella and Sarah Callow are the whippers-in.
Senior Master Rupert Macauley has foxhunting in his DNA. His father Billy was Master of the Naas Harriers for twenty-eight seasons, and his mother Diana was also a Joint-Master. Rupert Macauley was Master of the Kildare Foxhounds for eleven seasons during which time he hunted the dog hounds on Mondays. His Kildare hounds won countless trophies on the flags. He is chairman of the Irish Masters of Foxhounds Association for the last five years, and one of the main organisers of the Annual National Hound Show in Stradbally, County Laois. During that time he has been especially innovative in introducing a Hunt Apprenticeship Scheme for those interested in a career in hunt service. The successful candidates are placed with an experienced huntsman for a year, learning all aspects of managing a hunt, horse and hound welfare, and the relationship with landowners and the countryside. All graduates have been successfully employed.
A farmer himself, Macauley knows all about the countryside and the importance of controlling foxes in this sheep breeding area of the Wicklow Hills. Like the huntsman, local farmers are dependent on their income from sheep.
Macauley’s attention to detail is noticeable in breeding suitable hounds for hunting in the hills and forestry. They need to be slightly longer in the leg and athletic, steady on deer, think and cast themselves on their own if needs be, and get through wire—particularly deer proof and sheep wire. He has introduced breeding lines going back to Blencathra Glider, lines from the College Valley in Northumberland, and more recently a stallion hound from the Zetland named Woodcock. Their characteristics are inherited from centuries of careful breeding for purpose, and are similar to the hounds Ikey Bell and Elsie Morgan introduced to the West Waterford Foxhounds in the 1950s—forebears of the Modern English Foxhound. Macauley hunts twelve-and-a-half couple remembering the advice of the late Scarteen Master Thady Ryan, “Bring a small pack of hounds, and, like a small committee, they get the job done”!
It is such a privilege to hunt in the Wicklow Hills, especially when they are covered in snow. It is inspiring and mystical, there is so much to see, and you are so much closer to nature in the unspoiled surroundings. The followers, mainly families, are a happy group, appreciative of what they are so lucky to share, with Masters that get as much from their enjoyment as they do themselves. They all have a job to do, whether it is to help on a hunting day, organise a function like the annual barbeque for the farming community, and because they keep puppies in the summer and walk hounds they know their names. Consequently they are close to the pack, and can really appreciate their contribution to the countryside.
Field Master Christy Hart, MFH leads the field from the meet at Brittas. / Noel Mullins photo
Joint-Master Christy Hart’s family is certainly enthusiastic about hunting. Sons Christopher and Paul, just back from hunting with the Berkeley and the Croome and West Warwickshire in the UK, help walking hounds. Paula Hart, with a hunting injury, was temporarily side-lined. She runs Hart Livery Farm and Stud with her husband Christopher, where they prepare horses for the sales and stand Artan by Be My Native who has sired a number of Group winners including three winners just before Christmas. Paula whose hobby was flying light aircraft said quite eloquently, “Hunting is my round of golf, in great company, surrounded by spectacular scenery.” Her favourite hound is Badger whom she reared, and described him, “As cute as a Christian”! Paula was head of hospitality, dispensing port at the meet, and then throughout the day fed the followers between draws with everything from a cheeseboard of garlic cheese garnished with a mulled wine spice chutney topping, olive bread with soft cheese, and latterly biscuits and liquorice allsorts! It looks as if the West Wicklow followers are some of the best connoisseurs of cheese in Ireland.
Rupert Macauley’s wife Alice and their son, two-year-old Barney, and mother-in-law Rachel Fletcher, who hunts with the Sinnington in North Yorkshire, were following by car.
Because of the hills, hunt staff all carry radios as does a road whip. From flooded roads around Hampton Lodge Equestrian Centre it was a relief to head up the mountains to the first draw at Junior Eustace’s farm. The huntsman carefully drew first left-handed, and then right where hounds found a stale line near a flock of ewes and hunted along by Lisheen Golf Course but could make nothing of it. In the meantime Ronan Moloney went for a bath in a river, but remounted and kept hunting.
Pat Kelly’s farm in Lisheen was blank. But Sean Eustace’s produced the best and longest run of the day, which went on for well over an hour. Hounds found and ran one circuit of the woodland making real hound music, before crossing a field of grass heading up hill all the time for Talbotstown Wood where they fortunately managed to get through the deer proof wire. The fox crossed the Dowry Road into Mylie Balfe’s where his yeaning ewes seemed to settle once they saw the pack, knowing that the cavalry had arrived! Hounds settled to their line with the huntsman keeping above and wide of them just in case they needed help as two more foxes passed him in a safer direction. Hounds then ran right-handed over Sean Eustace’s skirting the edge of Butter Mountain (in Gaelic Slieve an Ime) which is over five hundred metres high. When they hit the snow-covered ridge they swung right-handed, clearly visible to the followers for miles as there was a clear blue sky in the background. They hunted on over Dowry Hill with the fox avoiding the heather as he knew he would be at a disadvantage. As hounds hunted higher, the snow covering got deeper as they skirted the Military Camp and eastwards over the Military Road where they marked him in the woods that looked very much like Lapland.
This was a great run by an honest pack, with followers that clearly appreciated how privileged they were to hunt in such picturesque surroundings.
Posted February 13, 2016
Noel Mullins is a lifelong foxhunter and sporting photo/journalist. Click to visit his website and view his books and articles.