The Grallagh Harriers Master and huntsman David Burke and field move off from the meet at the Meadow Court Hotel near Loughrea. / Noel Mullins photo
The Grallagh Harriers hunt much the same country as the Galway Blazers. The meet was at Meadow Court Hotel in Co. Galway, near my hometown of Loughrea. It brought back many happy memories so close as it is to St. Clerins, the former home of film director John Huston who wrote the screen play and/or directed such classic films as The Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Asphalt Jungle, African Queen, and Moby Dick. The list goes on. He won the Oscar twice and directed his father Walter and his daughter Anjelica to Oscar-winning roles as well.
John Huston was MFH of the Galway Blazers in the 1960s. It was nothing unusual to see his house guests following the hunt by car―Hollywood film stars like Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Orson Wells, playwright Jean Paul Sartre, or Paul Newman who bought a Connemara Pony from Lady Anne Hemphill.
Huston’s two children, Tony and Angelica, star of The Adams Family and Prizzi’s Honor hunted their Connemara ponies. Tony and Angelica went to school in Loughrea, and after school they walked down to Mrs. Tierney’s for their dinner before being collected by their mother, Ricki. Angelica wrote a book about her life in Galway [which FHL reviewed] titled, A Story Lately Told.
At that time if you were to look into Brogan’s Pub in Loughrea, noted for its carefully drawn pints of Guinness, you were just as likely to see Hollywood actors Richard Widmark, Montgomery Clift, or playwright Arthur Miller (Marilyn Monroe’s then husband) sitting at the bar in deep conversation with former Galway County Gaelic hurler, farmer, and proprietor Paddy Brogan.
I remember one particular St. Stephen’s Day after a Blazers’ meet in Raftery’s Pub in Craughwell where a ceili band was playing. Writer John Steinbeck, whom I remember as a very quiet man and author of books later to become films like East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and Cannery Row, helped to look after many of the children while their parents took to the floor for the traditional ceili dances. No one had a notion who he was, and usually referred to him as the American man with the beard!
I had the pleasure of hunting Huston’s hunters occasionally, as sometimes he gave up early through lack of fitness after a long spell away filming. But I had to wrap the leathers around and around the stirrups as he had such long legs. I remember helping Blazers’ Master and huntsman Michael Dempsey to clip horses in Huston’s stables. The highlight was being served tea and boudoir biscuits resting on doilies by a staff member in china cups on a silver tray in the stable while horse hair filled the air.
The Grallagh Harriers were formed as a private foot pack with David Burke as senior Master and huntsman in 2007. In 2009 they became a registered mounted pack and hunt fox and hare over the limestone walls of County Galway every Wednesday and Sunday during the season.
Although an amateur, David is the ultimate professional. He has great support from his parents Frank and Bernie; his Joint-Masters, Kevin Hough, Susan Oakes, and Tracy Lambert Egan; his sister, Lorraine, Field Master and honorary secretary; and brother Frankie and Declan Burke (no relation) who serve as honorary whippers-in.
David formed his private pack after having whipped-in to the West Percy (UK). He has also whipped-in to the Galway Blazers, so he knows the country well. He is a past chairman of both the Hunting Association of Ireland and the Irish Masters of Harriers Association. Both David and his father Frank have competed in showjumping on the Irish circuit for many years, producing horses also for all the major shows including the Dublin Horse Show. David always had that special understanding of horses and hounds, and I can remember him when he was younger having a number of terriers that would always respond if he blew the hunting horn! He has a huge interest in hounds and visits the major hound shows like Peterborough annually. He has well-designed kennels which are spotless, and his pack is ideal for Galway―very much Old English bloodlines, light, athletic with tremendous drive and voice.
The Grallagh hosted their first hunt ball in the Raheen Woods Hotel in Athenry this season, starting with a large turnout for a lawn meet hosted by Galway Blazers Field Master Willie Leahy at his Dartfield Horse Museum & Farm. The Ball was attended by many overseas visitors such as Heinrich Jung, an organic farmer from Norway. The visitors provide a much needed injection of income into the rural equestrian economy with horse sales and the hire of horses, mainly from Willie Leahy, Oliver Walsh and James Tonery. Accommodations business has also been improved at the Slieve Aughty Three Towers Hotel, the Meadow Court Hotel, and at Caroline Madden’s Gordon’s Pub in Tynagh, which has opened as a traditional style guest house and is proving popular with visitors.
David and his harriers have had many busy days this season, particularly the St Stephen’s Day meet at the kennels and a nice run over Knockash with superb views over Loughrea Lake, and a fast thirty-minute run from Moyglass in wide circles to Marble Hill. But probably the best day so far this season was from Cartymore Cross over the best of Galway stone walls. Hounds flew and it took the followers all they could muster to stay with the pack for a cracking run of fifty-five minutes.
The meet from the Meadow Court Hotel avoided the hunting country towards Dugrane as a lot of farmers are currently lambing. But that did not curtail the action in the country towards Loughrea. Huntsman Burke was interesting to observe as he jumped in off the road into Duane’s where there is a smashing clump of furze at the far end of the field. I checked wind direction and was wondering which way he would draw it. True to the professional that he is, he took the pack down the side of the covert and not one hound broke from the pack. He then drew right to left into the wind, textbook style. In thirty seconds hounds had a fox up and running and hunting as a pack. What fantastic cry, really stirring, as they raced away left-handed over Glynn’s and then Dan Corry, Jr’s farm. Corry’s grand-uncle, Loughrea native Lt. Col. Dan Corry was a member of the famous Irish Army Show Jumping Team that was the only Irish team to win four Aga Khan Nations Cups in a row from 1935 to 1938 at the Dublin Horse Show. Corry won fifty-five international competitions all over Europe, the USA, and Canada, and was a team member on fourteen successful Nations Cup Teams. Disappointingly, none of his achievements are mentioned on a plaque in Corry Park dedicated to him in Loughrea!
Running back again by Corry’s, hounds raced on right-handed over to Ryan’s, into Matt Conway’s Plantation and by the Kilconiran Gaelic Hurling Club and back to Matt Conway’s. From there they skirted by Paul Tierney’s, Gerry Martin’s, and across the Loughrea to Athenry Road near the Meadowcourt cross roads. They checked within one field of the old Galway main road before crossing back by Mitchell’s Tractor Parts and into the New Plantation where they marked the fox to ground after a cracking run of over forty minutes. Hounds quickly found again in Duane’s and hunted back to Matt Ryan’s where they marked to ground after another thirty minutes.
It was a shorter day than usual because of lambing in the area, but hounds had enough done by then, so David blew for home. Refreshments were served at The Meadow Court Hotel, courtesy of proprietor David Corbett.
Posted April 3, 2019
Noel Mullins is a photojournalist and author of The Dublin Horse Show, The Irish Hunter, In Search of the Kerry Beagle, and other books on Irish horse sport.