Donegal Harriers president and honorary whipper-in Ger O’Riain, MFH and Dr. Lucinda Blakiston-Houston, honorary whipper-in and hostess of the meet at Beltrim Castle in County Tyrone / Noel Mullins photo.
The Donegal Harriers, formed in 1999, is a relatively new pack by Irish standards. It is also the first pack of registered harriers in County Donegal, the northernmost county in the west of Ireland, replacing the Strabane Foxhounds that hunted the country until 1977.
The pack was meeting in Gortin in the Owenkillew River Valley on the outskirts of Omagh, over the border in County Tyrone. Upon visiting, first impressions could easily lead to the conclusion that the only significant activities in this quiet, remote, rustic village was Mossey’s Bar, Pedlar’s Cafe, and a Farmer’s Market on a Monday! But scratching beneath the surface, there is a rare gem in Beltrim Castle, built in 1780.
The surrounding village was once a standalone community with its own flour mill, tannery, workhouse, hospital, sawmill, windmill, and brewery. Later, after the churches purchased and converted some of the properties, the Protestant minister ended up living in what was once the fever hospital, and the Catholic priest in the workhouse!
Ger O’Riain is president and MFH of the Donegal Harriers. Peter Mulrine and Donald Day are also Masters. The huntsman is Derek O’Donnell, assisted by whippers-in Ger O’Riain, Mark McGlinchey, Oliver Little, and Dr. Lucinda Blakiston-Houston.The owners of Beltrim Castle are Lucinda and her husband Richard Patrick Blakiston-Houston, a chartered surveyor who was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Honours List for Services to Natural and Built Heritage in Northern Ireland. The couple also run a sheep hill farm and a large dairy farm.
The countryside is dominated by the Sperrin Mountains, drumlins, and seven lakes known as kettle holes where huge blocks of ice melted, evidence of the Ice Age and the melt ten thousand years ago. The Dairadian gold mine in the Sperrin Mountains claims that it will yield 120,000 ounces a year for decades. The Owenkillew River is home of the protected freshwater pearl mussel, as well as trout and salmon running through Beltrim Estate.
Once in a while one comes across somebody who is truly inspirational. Dr Lucinda Blakiston-Houston is a science graduate from Leeds and Queens Universities, and a horsewoman and event rider since childhood. She takes after her mother Lady Miriam Hubbard, who hunted with the Badsworth Hounds in Yorkshire. More than a year ago Lucinda received dreadful news: a diagnosis that she had a tumour in her leg which would result in amputation. Anticipating the outcome, and to illustrate her positive test of will, she bought a side saddle before going into hospital, as she had no intention of giving up a pastime of a lifetime. In life you come to admire some people and respect others, but people like Lucinda are such inspirational role models to those who have similar challenges in life.
Lucinda’s background is in dressage, hunting, eventing, breeding, and producing eventing horses like Beltrim Full Moon and Beltrim Sweet Clover, horses which she competed to one star level and which are now ridden in competition by National riders Trevor and Steven Smith. She is also active in Strule Riding Club and Glens Bridle Group who are trying to join up five villages in the Sperrin Mountains through a connecting bridle-way to increase equestrian tourism in the area under the banner, Join Up. The estate was a hive of activity over the weekend of the hunt as Lucinda was celebrating her sixtieth birthday, and her son Michael his eighteenth. Lucinda was one of the first mounted, along with sons Michael and Harry, the latter having ridden across Mongolia.
Donegal Harriers Joint-Master Ger O’Riain is certainly multi-talented, as he is also whipper-in and sometimes Field Master. He runs a successful estate agency in Letterkenny in County Donegal, and always has a welcoming smile for everybody. He is not only enthusiastic about hunting and seeing the followers enjoying themselves, but is also a believer in giving something back, lending his expertise as a committee member of the Irish Masters of Harriers Association. The other Joint-Masters are Donald Day and Peter Mulrine. Day’s brother Des is a medical practitioner and hunts with the Fingal Harriers in Counties Dublin and Meath. Des was on his twenty-seven-year-old hunter called D-Day. Peter Mulrine, who was hunting with his son David, is one of the largest producers of apple juice in Ireland, planting an additional 180,000 apple trees on his property just last year. The Joint-Masters are hands-on in managing this large hunting country. They work with a group of hard-working area managers who liaise with land owners to organise the hunt meets.
The pack of Welsh hounds, mainly David Davies bloodlines, are contracted from Oliver Little and his Dungannon Foot Foxhounds which Derek O’Donnell has hunted for the last six seasons. They were in pristine condition, with snow white coats—not easy to maintain with their long hair that matts easily. O’Donnell was hunting a sturdy, coloured cob that prefers to live out in the paddock instead of inside the stable.
Following by car was Lucinda’s brother Nicholas Hubbard, who, together with his son Theo, hunts fox and muntjac deer in Essex and Norfolk in the UK with a golden eagle. Another important member is Rosemary Fisher who is the hunt photographer, manages public relations, and keeps the hunt Facebook site up to date.
After refreshments prepared by Miranda Pratt, Poppy and Letitia Blakiston-Houston and Veronica McCrory, the huntsman took hounds to the first draw at the Avenue while the followers enjoyed an inviting series of cross country fences that are in every enclosure of the estate. Another draw off the Newtownstewart Avenue took them to the Lion Neck. There was plenty more action at Church Hill where this fox stretched the field giving a good lead and ending at Stiff Hill. As hounds were taken across the road they found another fox that ran in a wide circle towards Gortin Village where he went to ground at the back of the National School. Brocks Glen Wood held again, and hounds raced away for a nice run that took fox and hounds up the steep face of Stiff Hill which has a drop of 150 feet, and on across the estate, but they lost him just short of the village. Benny Hill who rides for point-to-point jockey Johnny Creswell had his day curtailed as he walked back with his horse in one hand and a broken bit in the other, along with a suspected fractured wrist.
The huntsman was not finished, though the weather was by now miserable with driving wind and rain. Pea Park held, resulting in circular runs through the woods from Black Walk to the Fall Field. Showjumper Peter Smith’s smashing grey hunter made a great shape over a fence off the main avenue as did farrier John McDaid, whose son Thomas is a farrier in Dubai.
As darkness closed in, the huntsman blew for home. It was time for the happy group of Donegal Harrier followers to box their horses and settle in to the womderful hospitality at Beltrim Castle.
Posted May 16, 2017