Huntsman Ivan Dowling is an asset to his community. Public goodwill, we believe, is the key to the future of foxhunting.
Cheshire huntsman Ivan Dowling, hounds, and field on their way to the next draw / Jim Graham photo
Foxhunting Life has argued in past articles that the future of foxhunting depends simply on telling the truth about our sport and being good neighbors in our communities. Take Irish-born Ivan Dowling for example.
In the small village of Unionville in Chester County, Pennsylvania, Dowling has bred and hunted hounds for seventeen years. He not only supervises hunt staff, works with the Masters, members, and landowners, but he also has worked closely with the conservancies and preservation organizations in the area to keep land open.
But that wasn’t quite enough for Ivan. What follows is a message to members from Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds.
Please Join Us in Congratulating Ivan
Since 2003, when Ivan Dowling first joined the team at Cheshire, he has embodied a variety of personal traits that make him an outstanding huntsman and member of our community. Ivan is brave. He fearlessly jumps all of the most heart-stopping obstacles in our countryside without a lead, often in front of a discerning audience. He tolerates discomfort better than most, coming back from a variety of injuries to work a physically taxing job in all types of weather. He works well with a team; the group that runs the stable and the kennels is as cohesive as his pack of hounds. Being a huntsman requires responsive, flexible thinking based on changing conditions, a quality that Ivan demonstrates every time hounds go out. Finally, Ivan knows the value of belonging to and serving a community. From becoming an American citizen to mentoring CHC juniors at the Hunt Camp to clearing trails in our countryside to helping out with difficult horses, Ivan has demonstrated a deep commitment to the extended CHC community just as we have embraced him as one of our own.
Last September, Ivan began a pursuit that also utilizes the traits we value so dearly in him: volunteer firefighting. During the past fourteen months, Ivan has been able to fulfill his requirements for his national firefighting certification (FF1) without ever compromising his commitment to Cheshire.
Ivan reports that being a firefighter fills a void he didn’t know he had. The CHC Board of Directors and the Masters are extremely proud of Ivan’s accomplishment, and we are grateful for the positive light it casts on Cheshire in the broader community. Please join us in congratulating Ivan on his remarkable achievement.
Digging further, FHL discovers that Ivan isn’t the first in his family to emigrate to this country and contribute. Noel Mullins,* a popular contributor of Irish hunting articles and reports to FHL is Ivan’ uncle. This from Mullins:
[Ivan] did say to me that America has been very good to him, and he always wanted to give something back.
But he is not the first in our family that served in the US. His grand-uncle (my uncle) Monsignor John Mullins (Captain Jack) from County Clare (appointed to St. John’s Parish in Saint Petersburg, Florida) served as a Chaplain in the US Army in WWII and was decorated with the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and the European Theater of Operations Ribbon with Five Stars. Another of his grand-uncles emigrated to the US also from County Clare. Paddy Kelleher (resident of Brookline, Massachusetts), who served with the US Army in Korea was decorated with the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Silver Star. Both were injured in the campaigns but served on until the end of the wars. And an ancestor whose family emigrated from County Clare during the Great Famine…his son, Daniel Mullins, was a track and field athlete in Boston and represented the US Team in the Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1920.
I am delighted for Ivan to be making such a positive impression in his adopted country. His late mother and father would have been very proud of him as are all our family.
There are some wonderful youngsters out hunting today. It’s up to us whether or not they will see their own children also enjoying the foxhunting life. Ivan Dowling is doing his part.
Posted October 16, 2020
* Noel Mullins, a retired IBM executive, is a photojournalist, lifelong foxhunter, and author of The Dublin Horse Show, The Irish Hunter, In Search of the Kerry Beagle, and other books on Irish horse sport.