Huntsman Liam McAlinden and foxhounds move off from McDonagh’s Pub in Tynaugh. / Noel Mullins photo
As the end of the season approaches, it has not come soon enough for some East Galway followers. The hunt could open a hospital casualty ward what with old foxhunting injuries resurrecting themselves—niggling joints, dodgy knees, frozen shoulders, and sore hips. Joint-Master Joe Cavanagh has just had knee surgery, and remarkably he was following by car a few days afterwards. One hunt follower I met was walking very bandy, like a jockey, and he admitted that he would definitely not be able to block a terrier in a corridor! But the East Galway followers are made of stern stuff and despite their temporary handicaps they all look fine when mounted on their hunters!
To further compound matters, some of the hunt horses also need rest. But East Galway has a reputation for producing top-class show jumping and eventing horses, and despite their value they are not being kept in cotton wool; they are being called into action to get followers to the end of the season. No doubt a bit of serious hunting will sharpen them up for the competition season.
The country of the East Galway Foxhounds was originally hunted by Giles Eyre of Eyrecourt from 1791-1829. The East Galway Hunt Club was founded in 1880 with country on loan from the Galway Blazers. The hunt was disbanded in 1956 and revived in 1969 with Michael Higgens hunting hounds and later Michael Dempsey. (Subsequently, Dempsey became Master and huntsman of the Galway Blazers followed by his son Michael Jr.)
East Galway chairman is Tom Fahy, with Joint-Masters Joe Cavanagh, Olive Broderick, Pascal Conroy and Niall Earls. Liam McAlinden is the huntsman with whippers-in Alan Briscoe and Neville Horsman. Field Master is Cathal Gibbons.
Moving off are (l-r) whipper-in Neville Horsman; Daniel McAlinden; Niall Earls, MFH; Olive Broderick, MFH; and her son, Joshua. / Noel Mullins photo
An Accomplished Field of Followers
Niall Earls is the newest to join the Joint-Mastership. Niall’s family are manufacturers of EASYFIX racecourse fences and rubber matting for the equestrian and agricultural industry. Also following hounds this day was one of Ireland most successful showjumping and eventing coaches, Ralph Conroy of the local Millchem Equestrian Centre in Tynagh, a former huntsman himself. He has trained many of the top young showjumpers and eventers in the West of Ireland including World Equestrian Games Eventing Silver Medallist Cathal Daniels. Ralph who is also a breeder and producer of show jumpers and eventers was profiled in The Irish Field in a recent feature by Susan Finnerty. She described Ralph as “the medal maker,” as at least thirteen European Medal winners have been trained by him. He was following along with his niece, Caoimhe, and sister in law, Caroline.
Joint-Master Olive Broderick was hunting a smashing hunter with Traditional Irish Horse Clover Hill bloodlines. She was accompanied by her son Joshua. Olive and her husband Ivor own Kylemore Stud nearby, where successful stallions like Watermill Swatch, Tyson, and Womanizer stand. Kylemore Stud will shortly stand two of Jimmy Quinn’s Irish Draught stallions, Cappa Casanova and Cappa Aristocrat, while Jimmy and his wife Edel undertake an equestrian project in China. WEG silver medallist Cathal Daniels will campaign Broderick’s four-year-old Thoroughbred, KMS Timeless, on the eventing circuit. Honorary secretary Kathleen Ward was on a good performing Appaloosa.
Huntsman’s wife Dorothy McAlinden, daughter Rachel, and son Daniel / Noel Mullins photo
Huntsman Liam McAlinden’s wife Dorothy, a daughter of Galway Blazers Field Master Willie Leahy (uncle of Tony Leahy, president of the MFHA of America) was hunting with her daughter Rachel and son Daniel, a regular competitor at the Dublin Horse Show. He is now campaigning three showjumping horses for honorary whipper-in Alan Briscoe. Briscoe was on foot as he has run out of hunters from, he said, “making the country easier for the followers,” but he has another on order. He was accompanied by his bulldog Bertie who is related to former Irish international rugby player Jamie Heaslip’s dog, Jay-Z. Bertie is really spoiled. To develop his personality, he attends doggy day-care to socialize! It was great to see Briscoe’s fellow whipper-in Neville Horsman back in action after a short layoff.
Former Laois Foxhounds whipper-in Ann Hannify was also out. Scott Caskey a regular visitor from the Alchemy Restaurant in Martha’s Vineyard in the USA was hunting. (The Obamas dined at the Alchemy during their 2016 summer vacation on the Vineyard.) Scott has a Welcome Flagmount Traditional Irish Draught hunter at home in the USA.
Also following were Oliver Walsh, huntsman of the Roscommon Harriers from nearby Flowerhill Equestrian Centre and John Morrissey, former Field Master of the Roscommons. Niall Molloy, a fine horseman who spent a few seasons whipping-in to Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds in Pennsylvania, was also out. (Loughrea native Ivan Dowling is huntsman at the Cheshire in the USA.) Paula Cosgrave who had a horse-related accident is on the mend and all look forward to seeing her back in the saddle. Local farmer Sean Canavan was following every inch of the way in his New Holland tractor. They say he has worn out five tractors following the East Galway Foxhounds over a period of fifty years!
With Field Master Cathal Gibbons not hunting this day, the hunt was spoiled for choice for Field Masters with Tom Fahy filling in, and David Masterson, a former whipper-in of the Ormond Foxhounds and the United Foxhounds in the wings.
Johnnie O’Donnell and his son, Shane, do the fence mending. Not only does this pair do a fantastic job putting the country back together, but are also the hunt’s finest diplomats maintaining great relationships with the farming community.
A Fine Hunting Day
The day was to unfold as one of the best of the season. The first draw was across from McDonagh’s Pub, and it started the way you like all hunts to, with a symphony of hound music from the twelve couple of hounds in Padraic Conway’s Plantation. A brace and a half were on the move. Thomas Fahy viewed one away left-handed through Patsy Blake’s and on through Laurance and Eamonn Fells’ winter corn. The fox circled back in the direction of Portumna and into the corner of Fells’ again, with a nice line of limestone walls, hedges, and a few hunt jumps helping to get the followers eye in. The pack flew over Laurence Lawless’s before checking. Huntsman McAlinden did a clever diagonal cast, and immediately Panther, a fourth season home-bred Old English doghound, picked it up with great drive and accuracy pressing on through Josh Tierney’s. The experienced bi*ch, Carty, was the first to mark to ground in Fells’ out-farm with the rest of the pack quickly on the spot for a forty-five-minute pipe opener.
The huntsman drew back through the same covert again, and the pack picked at a cold line, feathering away slowly. The other brace of foxes had long gone, however, and scent was almost non-existent, so the huntsman wasted no time drawing a fresh covert across the road. Immediately the pack was screaming away again on yet another brace as there must have been a get-together of foxes in Carey’s Covert on the hill. The pack ran parallel to the Portumna to Tynagh Road, then crossed on into Laurence Lawless’s with walls and hedges coming up fast. The field skirted McLoughlin’s by Mike Hegney’s house before running on over Liam Broder’s and John Connor’s and through the Three Cornered Field in Seamus Conroy’s, a brother of Ralph by the Reask Road. Here the fox doubled back on himself to Seamus Conroy’s and Moloney’s and went to ground in a bank in John Hegney’s. It was another great run of about forty minutes. A few riders went for an unscheduled swim in a river. They shall remain nameless, just to say one was the new Joint-Master, but he has since got delivery of a new red coat, so no worries!
After a breather, the huntsman tried Hegney’s Covert, the Sandpits, and hunt chairman Tom Fahy’s farm where hounds hunted a cold line and marked. So it was on to Oliver Walsh’s Flowerhill Equestrian Centre. The huntsman drew the river bank, over a field of rape, and the High Road where the late and much missed Master of both the Galway Blazers and the East Galways, Vincent Shields, lived. His favourite hunter Ray Boy that escorted his cortege at his funeral in Athenry is still in Flowerhill.
There were lots of happy faces returning to McDonagh’s Pub where proprietors Brian and Rose McDonagh served homemade brown bread and soup that my mother would describe as “so thick you could trot a mouse on it.”
Posted March 1, 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.