Dickie Power
PP Hogan (1922-2005)
In Ireland, the early 1950s through the 1960s was an era of amateur Master/huntsmen―young men of some means―who took on a pack of hounds more as an avocation than a job," writes our correspondent, Dickie Power. He was fortunate to have hunted with many of them, such as Thady Ryan in Scarteen, Evan Williams in Tipperary, Lord Daresbury in Limerick, Capt. Harry Freeman-Jackson in Duhallow, Victor McCalmont in Kilkenny, Elsie Morgan in West Waterford, and PP Hogan in Avondhu. This centenary year of Hogan’s birth is an appropriate time to remember him―a legend of Irish foxhunting and point-to-point racing.
(L-R) PP Hogan with his friend Thady Ryan, Master and huntsman, Scarteeen Black and Tans (1956)
PP (Pat) Hogan was born in Ireland into a family of horse dealers, farmers, and huntsmen, with an odd Bishop thrown in. His great uncle was the sporting bishop of Limerick, who always encouraged his clergy to ride to hounds.
The Hogans were a well-to-do farming family, with farms dotted around east Limerick, then as now an area steeped in everything to do with the horse. PP rode almost before he could walk. He rode his first race at the age of twelve. In those days before health and safety reigned supreme, it was only a matter of months before he made the first of countless visits to the winner’s enclosure.
Pat Coyle: Forty-Two Seasons, Huntsman, Ward Union Staghounds
Pat Coyle, huntsman, Ward Union Staghounds (IR) / Catherine Power photo
Pat Coyle, born and reared in Two Mile House, Co Kildare, has been huntsman of the Ward Union Staghounds since 1980. It was as natural for young Pat to follow a hunting career as it was for a bank manager’s son to join the bank. Pat’s maternal uncle, Eamonn Dunphy, was the much-revered huntsman of the Ward Union, but age and falls had taken their toll. By the late 1970s, he was nearing the end of his tether. So when the job of yardman in the kennels fell vacant, seventeen-year-old Pat Coyle applied and was hired. By that point, he was no longer red raw.
Duhallow Foxhounds at Monymusk Stud
Author and friend / Catherine Power photoWith the season winding down, we decided to keep the best wine ’til last...or very nearly so. Monday saw us with the “Dashing” Duhallow at their meet at Monymusk Stud in Kanturk. The Duhallow is the oldest hunting establishment in Ireland with foxhounds, and has hunted the country continuously since 1745. The market town of Kanturk is looked on as the capital of the ancient barony of Duhallow, so it seemed a suitable venue on which to end their season.
Monymusk, now the property of Duhallow Senior Master Kate Jarvey, was bound to be a gala occasion, and so it proved. Kate holds the unique distinction of being Master of two of Ireland’s leading packs simultaneously—the Duhallow and neighbouring Scarteen. Her great-grandfather was Ely Lily of pharmaceutical fame, and she was brought up during Cape Cod summers near the Kennedy family. Kate is also a former chairman of the Irish Masters of Foxhounds Association. Sadly she was not riding as she is recovering from a broken hip, the result of an unfortunate schooling fall just after Christmas.
The Scarteen at Lattin and Knockcarron
John Halligan stretches for a big double at Lattin. / Catherine Power photo
Spoiled for choice with three top-class Scarteen meets back-to-back, it appeared only logical to cover all three. With Christmas comes a choice of great hunting, and with scent (that essential but illusive ingredient) improving daily, the omens were good. And so it proved.
The little village of Lattin is so called because it was a seat of learning in the middle ages. The story goes that a weary traveller asked the way to Emly Cathedral of three roadside workers. The first answered in Gaelic while the second disagreed in Lattin, but the definitive directions were given in Greek. Gone are the classics, and the little village on the Tipperary/Limerick border would hardly warrant a backward glance from motorists today, but on a Scarteen hunting day it becomes a mecca. Keen enthusiasts arrange days off, marriages are postponed, and births delayed so that they might be there because it is a special place. Horses had been rested or galloped with the point-to-pointers in preparation for the day.
The North Tipperary at Loughton House
Visitor Tony Holdsworth, retired huntsman for the Duke of Beafort's (UK) wears the green livery of his former hunt. Center is Denis Gilmartin, Master and huntsman of the North Tipperary. To the right on the gray is Rose Scanlon, mounted side-saddle. To the right again, on the gray and bay horses, are Loughton House hosts, Dr. Michael Lyons and Dr. Andrew Vance, MFH. / Catherine Power photo
It’s been a couple of seasons since we were with the North Tipperary Foxhounds (IRE). A visit was overdue, so when we heard through Arabella Scanlon whom we met last year in East Clare that a very special lawn meet was upcoming at Loughton House, we jumped at the opportunity. Set in more than a hundred acres of fabulous park and farmland in the small village of Moneygall, the eighteen-bedroom estate straddles the Tipperary-Offaly border and, likewise, the border between the North Tipperary and Ormond hunting countries.
Loughton is just a stone’s throw from Barak Obama Plaza. The U.S. President, traveling in the footsteps of his mother’s family, visited Moneygall in 2011.
Waterford Opening Meet at Historic Curraghmore
St. Hubert's stag and the crucifix atop the medieval tower at CurraghmoreOpening meets are always special, but when it is at Curraghmore for the Waterford Foxhounds, and a lawn meet to boot, it goes beyond special. Indeed, the hunt was originally known as the Curraghmore Hounds. The estate is steeped in all things of the horse. Even as we drove in the long avenue (it must be more than a mile), race horses were being unboxed and tacked up on the gallops and schooling grounds which are widely used by trainers in that part of the country.
Curraghmore is the historic home of the Ninth Marquis of Waterford. His ancestors through his maternal line, the de la Poers (Power), came to Ireland from Wales with Strongbow and the Normans around 1170—about a century after the Norman invasion of England and about 320 years before Columbus ‘discovered’ the New World.
Hunting In the Footsteps of Irish History
Thirteenth century Liscarroll Castle in the Duhallow hunting country, near the site of the Battle of Liscarroll in 1642.
There are certain days that stand out in the sporting calendar, Gold Cup day in Cheltenham, Aga Khan day at the Royal Dublin Show, the Maryland Hunt Cup in the USA, Munster final in Thurles (especially if Cork and Tipperary are playing), but ranking at least equal to any of these must be a meet of the Duhallow in Liscarroll. The Duhallow kennels are nearby, and huntsman Ger Withers is a native of the parish so it could be described as their spiritual home. As if all this weren’t enough, longstanding hunt chairman Pat Fleming farms nearby, and the Flemings have been farming in Liscarroll since the Battle of Liscarroll around 1642.
The County Limerick Foxhounds at Kilmallock
The well-bred Old English foxhounds of the County Limerick continue to show exciting sport. The Limerick breeding program has been closely associated with that of the Belvoir (UK) since the Mastership of Lord Daresbury beginning in the mid-twentieth century. / Catherine Power photo
Reports on hunting with The Counties, as the County Limerick Foxhounds are locally referred to, have been glowing with stories of one red letter day following hard on the heels of another. So it was with some sense of anticipation we joined last Saturday’s meet at the mart yard in Kilmallock.
There were over sixty mounted, including several U.S. visitors. From the Midland Fox Hounds in Georgia came Mason Lampton, Jr, MFH, with his two sons Whitney and younger brother Henry—great-grandchildren of the famous foxhunter, Ben Hardaway, who at age ninety-eight passed away only recently. Organizers of the American expedition were Richard and Lilith Boucher, steeplechase jockey and trainer from Camden, South Carolina, and their daughter Mell.
Duhallow Foxhounds at Kilbrin: The Oldest Foxhound Pack in Ireland
Duahallow huntsman Ger Withers / Catherine Power photoFounded by the Wrixon-Becher family, the Duhallow foxhounds have been hunting North Cork from the Kerry border to Doneraile continuously since 1745 making it the oldest foxhound pack in Ireland. (For those who question how to reconcile that with the Scarteen, the recorded history of which goes back to the early 1700s, the keyword is “foxhounds.” The Scarteen Black and Tans are technically known as Kerry Beagles, though they dwarf any beagles we know today.)
The Duhallow pack existed before 1745, but there is no recorded history. That year, Henry Wrixon of Ballygiblin rented a fox covert, Regan’s Break, for thirteen guineas. Henry passed the pack on to his son, Colonel William Wrixon, who in turn passed it on to his own son. In 1800, Sir William Wrixon Becher, MFH met with several other gentlemen to form a club to be called the Duhallow Hunt Club. Sir William had taken on his wife’s maiden name, Becher, she from the same family for which the infamous obstacle on the Grand National Steeplechase course at Aintree, England, Becher’s Brook, is named.
William Gleeson: 1925–2017
Willie Gleeson was Helen's first and only boyfriend.
Willie Gleeson, from Knocklong, County Limerick, Ireland, died on November 5, 2017. He was ninety-two.
Willie was known to just about every foxhunting visitor worldwide who ever hunted with the world-famous Scarteen Black and Tans. He hired out well-schooled, athletic field hunters that carried visitors safely over the imposing and sometimes treacherous banks and ditches of the Scarteen hunting country. Many of those visitors had never before faced such obstacles, but Willie's horses knew what to do!
