Wild sports of the West

Prefatory Note

William Hamilton Maxwell (1792-1850) born at Newry, County Down, was the son of James Maxwell, of the Maxwells of Nithsdale. His mother was the daughter of William Hamilton, of good family. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of 15, and graduated there with distinction, and afterwards served in the Peninsular Campaigns and at Waterloo, as a Captain in the 88th Regiment.

On the disbanding of the forces, he returned to Newry and spent some years desultorily, reading, hunting and shooting, and got into money difHculties, but mended his fortune by marriage and took holy orders, obtaining the living of Ballagh, in Connemara, a place without a congregation, but full of game.

Here he wrote his first novel, " O'Hara " ; '' Wild Sports of the West," praised by Professor Wilson in ' Noctes Ambrosianae " as the work of a true sportsman ; *' Stories of Waterloo," his best known work ; a " Life of the Duke of Wellington,'' repeatedly reprinted ; " A History of the Rebellion in 1798"; and was also the author of a variety of sketches and novels chiefly on sporting and military subjects, and many magazine articles It may be said of him that if Maginn's " O'Doherty " suggested the Irish military novel. Maxwell anticipated his friend and admirer, Charles Lever, in this literary direction.

In appearance Maxwell was tall and good-looking, a brilliant conversationalist, and an agreeable host and guest

But he made no provision for the future, and after spending several years in ill-health and distress, retired to Musselburgh, near Edinburgh, where he died on Z9th December, .850.^^^^^^^

Introduction

BY

THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN

To properly appreciate the following pages the reader should first adjust his critical faculties to the date in which the letters were written — unless, indeed, he has actually cultivated a taste for the artificial periods, the practical joking, the elaborate puns, the sentimentalities and the somewhat pompous humour of the period. The art of description was not one in which the amateur writers of the early nineteenth century excelled. And it is not for its style that this book is valuable to us now. It is for the picture it presents of Hfe and social conditions painted, presumably, by an Anglicised Irishman during a sporting visit to a remote part of Connaught in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

Everything was new to the supposed writer ; most of what he had to tell, I imagine, was new also to the average reader of the time. For this book was almost a pioneer in its day. It was the first of a series beginning with Charles Lever and continuing to our own time in which the lives and manners of the Irish people, the sport and scenery of the country, are set forth in detail for the information and entertainment of British and Anglo-Irish readers. I will not go so far as to say

VI INTRODUCTION.

that but for this book the vivacious works of Miss Somerville and ** Martin Ross " — to say nothing of Miss Jane Barlow and Cannon Hannay — might never have been written. But he is to a certain extent, their forerunner ; and, to a still greater degree, his book is the forerunner of such stories as " Handy Andy," " Harry Lorrequer," and *' Castle Rackrent." And, indeed, as pointed out in the preface, Lever drew from personal intercourse with him, as well as from a full acquaintance with his Irish writings, the desire to follow him in the same field of fiction.

One great advantage of the book is that it is written from the outside point of view — the standpoint of an intelligent Anglo- Irishman educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and that the author visited Connaught much as an explorer might visit a newly-discovered savage island. We hear too much, perhaps, of the value of observations written from the inside. These are, strictly speaking, not observations at all, but expositions ; and although they have their place in providing the material from which full knowledge of a subject must be derived, it is the outsider who really sees a thing as a whole, in its truest proportions and in reasonable relationship to the rest of the world.

It is obvious that our author has but a very external knowledge of the Connemara people of his day. He did not know their thoughts, and might, perhaps, have been surprised if he could have learned their view of him. To him they were just the natives of the place,

INTRODUCTION. Vll

and their ways and habits were of small importance compared with those of salmon, grouse, snipe, and the red deer. But he tells us what he saw, and a good deal of what he heard ; his narrative, so far as is possible for a writer of the period, is a straightforward one, and has the intrinsic value of every document which sets forth a piece of life that a man has actually experienced.

The author describes a community in course of transition. The days of the hard riding, hard drinking, duelling, lavishly hospitable landed gentry, ruling over contented tenants and a whole host of dependents and hangers-on, in a country where the King's writ did not run, had not passed away. The clan system still existed, though in a degenerate form. The landlord, " the master," was chief, and held tenaciously to illegal rights frankly recognised by the clan. When, for instance, a portmanteau, the property of a visitor to the Lodge, was abstracted en route, there was no question of appealing to the law and of setting the police in motion. An outrage to the authority of the chief had been committed and the clan took it up. An armed emissary was dispatched, and presently returned with the portmanteau and an apology.

Fosterage was still deemed a tie as strong or stronger than one of blood Hennessey " my foster brother,'* was loved and protected One abduction and three homicides were chargeable against him, " He had been unfortunate," poor man. In fact the law — the written law and the legal executive were ignored or derided.

VUl INTRODUCTION.

Custom, the unwritten law and the legal executive were ignored or derided. Custom, the unwritten law of the master sanctioned by illegal physical force, prevailed. Private quarrels were speedily settled by a duel. Family feuds and clan feuds were of frequent occurrence resulting in faction fights, many broken heads and some loss of life. As though such causes of quarrel did not afford sufficient opportunities for a fight, mullet fishing was, for some inscrutable reason, deemed a fitting occasion for a small battle between the retainers of neighbouring landlords. The people believed that they had a prescriptive right to rob mullet nets, and, in consequence, would never be at the trouble of setting them unless they had a sufficiently strong party to protect the fish when taken. Of course the dependents of one landlord would not rob his nets, but they would rob his neighbours ; the neighbouring tribe would retaliate ; and on the occasion of a great catch there were plenty of broken heads, and sometimes not a few gunshot wounds. One of these adventures involved the summonsing of our author's host, " and it cost me a cool hundred before I got clear of the Honourable Justices."

What will at once strike the reader is the extraordinary change that has taken place in Ireland. When these letters were penned, the only social system in Connaught worth the name was the clan system ; and in a day of peasant proprietors, co-operative agriculture. Land Commissions, Congested District Boards and all the

INTRODUCTION. IX

Other agencies by which the complicated social machinery of Ireland is at present conducted, it is interesting to look back to this time, such a little while ago, when the only people of any importance were the landlord, the priest, and (in a lesser degree) the excise officer. The tribal picture presented in the book is definite and complete. Within and around the residence of the landlord was collected a host of dependents and hangers-on, some with duties and some with none, but all apparently with privileges ; all dependent directly on the landlord for shelter, food and drink, game, the produce of lakes, rivers and the sea, and illicitly distilled whiskey.

It must have been a happy life for them. They lived, as their landlords lived, in a world of perpetual sport ; when there had been a great kill there was a great feast, and when there was a great feast there was a great carouse. The successful running of a smuggled cargo of French brandy was the occasion of jubilation throughout the entire countryside, in which the magistrate landlord took part. And on the days when the weather was too severe for outdoor sport the turf was piled high on the hearth, fishing-rods and guns were brought out and cleaned, and the whole energies of the tribe given up to the overhaul of sporting apparatus of every kind.

A social condition existed which certainly would not appeal to the moralist or economist of the present day, but on the whole the people were happy and contented

X INTRODUCTION.

in it. The landed interest — owners and tenants — were well-to-do, and there was rough plenty for the paid and unpaid retinue of the landlord in those days before the " piping times of peace " had brought down prices by the run, and the great famine and its consequences had ruined the gentry and broken the hearts of the people.

For those who were not afraid of roughing it in a comfortable way, it was a sportsman's paradise. It is true that the actual appetite for killing seems to have been indulged in, rather childishly. " It was a bright and cheerful day ; the sun sparkled on the blue water, which, unruffled by the gentle breeze, rose and fell in the long and gentle undulations which roll in from the westward when the Atlantic is at rest. While puUing to the cove, we amused ourselves by shooting puffins as they passed us, or trying our rifles at a distant seal, while my kinsman's anecdotes whiled away the tedium of the voyage." Puffin shooting, and " trying rifles at a distant seal " would not be regarded to-day as very worthy occupations for a true sportsman, especially in a country which abounded with such variety of legitimate game. On the very day, for example, on which this incident is described, a party enjoyed the two very different sports of coursing and mullet fishing, and, after a magnificent run with Irish and English greyhounds, netted upwards of a hundred mullet weighing from four to ten pounds each.

Abundance of interesting lore is to be found in these

INTRODUCTION. XI

pages for the sportsman of any country ; particularly for him who still frequents the mountains and streams of Connemara. The wild red deer of Ireland are all gone now ; they were scarce in those days, but afforded splendid sport. The account of the pike on Lough Corrib is extremely interesting, as also are the notes on the trout found in the high mountain loughs. " Two loughs, situated in the same valley, and divided only by a strip of moorland not above two yards across, united by the same rivulet, and in depth and soil on bottom apparently similar, were found to produce fish as utterly different from each other as it is possible for fish of the same species to be ; in the centre lake the trout were ill-shapen and dark-coloured, with large heads, lean bodies, and little fight in them. In the adjacent lough they were golden and pellucid in colour with bright vermillion spots, compact in shape, and vigorous fighters ; and as much superior at table as they were in the water." Very interesting, too, is the account of a lake a hundred feet higher in the mountains producing trout remarkable both for their size and for their peculiarity in never rising at a fly or taking bait ; and which were yet frequently observed by the herdsmen rising over the water, or, as they said, *' tumbling about like dogs." The local assumption was that there was a sea-horse or other devil in the lake which prevented the fish from rising to the fly.

Charming, indeed, is the author's picture of the sporting lodge in the wilds of Erris, the home of his

Xll INTRODUCTION.

Irish kinsman, which was the head-quarters whence the sporting expeditions described in his narrative were made ; and pleasant, indeed, to his city eyes, must have been the sight of the narrow creek, with the snug thatched dwelling at the head of it where, although the Atlantic spray sometimes drifted against the windows, a great cliff broke the force of the sea winds, and a high hill on the land side sheltered it from the north. In the chilly evenings a turf fire burned in the parlour hearth ; and there, by the light of dried bog-deal added to the embers instead of candles, the sportsman and his guests sat over excellent claret that had never paid the revenue a farthing, or brewed toddy from the more potent spirit which was at once the produce and scourge of the district. The long roar of the Atlantic breakers was their lullaby at night ; the cries of wild birds and the cheerful hum of the farmyard awoke them in the morning. From the windows they could see the salmon flinging themselves over the smooth tide as they hurried to the mouth of their native river, or trace the outline of the Mayo hills where the original red deer of Ireland were still existing. No wonder the supposed stranger was delighted with the place, and in the course of a day or two, had thoroughly domesticated himself in it ; no wonder, after expeditions to the mountain hut where they encamped for a week or two, when in quest of the remoter game, or after an expedition to Achil after grouse or sea-fowl or rabbits, or snipe, or cock, he returned to it, as to a

INTRODUCTION. XIU

home. It was a strenuous life, and a very delightful one ; they were out all day on the mountains or along the shore ; came back at nightfall with full bags with which to replenish their wild larder ; and if they held something like a carouse after dinner, the long day's exercise in the wonderful air seems to have rendered both mind and body immune from any ill-effects. Be it noted in passing that there was no Eve in this paradise.

The human aspect of things is always interesting when politics and economics leave us cold ; and it is the scenery, the sport, the legendary lore, the lives and habits of the people that chiefly engage our author. Politics and economics he leaves on one side for the very good reason that they were non-existent in the part of Connaught which he visited ; and people who enjoy playing the game of ** Then and Now," of comparing things as they were with things as they are, will find this book a document of great value, enabling them to estimate to what extent a century's march of civilization has affected the remoter west of Ireland.

The book teems with incidents of sport, shooting, hunting, coursing, fishing on sea and river, and with many pertinent remarks on the fauna and scenery of the country. How far these descriptions are applicable to-day is for those who visit the wild west to say. Socially and economically the Connemara of to-day would be unrecognisable to one who visited it nearly a century ago. Good roads now traverse the then unmapped and trackless wilderness, and good hotels

XIV INTRODUCTION.

minister to the wants of the modern traveller. The ragged and somewhat irresponsible bands of personal retainers have dwindled down to harmless necessary giUies and guides. Produce, such as it is, can find a market, and barley and oats not needed for home consumption are no longer destined to the illicit still. The wild red deer is long ago extinct, and the most industrious trapper would fail to make a living now-a-days out of killing otters ; but seals are numerous, salmon leap their way upwards from the sea, and the eagle may reward the vigilance of the tourist, The same great Atlantic billows thunder against the same stupendous cliffs. Mountain, lake and river are unchanged.

The author is fond of introducing legends and anecdotes. Among the latter, the story of " The Man Who Would Not Do For Galway " is a fine example of the kind of Irish anecdote which remained very popular for many a year afterwards ; and the account of Mr. Dawkins, of Toole Castle, and how he was eaten up by the sporting friends of his wife, and finally ruined in mind and estate, is a convincing instance of that riotous extravagance both of narrative and of life in which writers upon Ireland of the period delighted. Much more real and quite beautiful in its way is the account of the death of Antony, the otter-killer. In fact, this old peasant, so full of unselfish affection, so wise in the lore of the mountains, the rivers and the lakes, and so skilful in his craft, is the one real portrait that stands out in the book. His simple devotion to

INTRODUCTION. XV

his master whose education in matters of sport had been in his hands from childhood, who had served three generations of the family and knew no world beyond it, is well indicated ; and in this respect, at any rate, one is happy to think that times have not altogether changed in Ireland, and that faithful and affectionate servants like Antony may still be found, honourably serving a master who loves and honours them for their service. His last words were beautifully characteristic of personal devotion and reverence for the name. " Master Julius, will ye Hsten to a dying man, he that carried ye in his arms, and loved ye better than all the world besides. Marry, Julius avourneen — the ould name that since the days of Shamus a Croaghagh held land and honour — surely ye won't let it pass ! You will mind the dog for my sake, Master JuHus, and ye'U let trap and fishing-rod hang up in the hall, to put ye in mind of old Antony." No wonder his master was heavily afflicted at the loss of his old friend and monitor ; no wonder he felt that, although the old man had died surrounded by those who loved him, full of years, and ripe for his rest, " He could have spared a better man."

DUNRAVEN.

ORIGINAL PREFACE.

Some explanation may be necessary for obtruding upon the public the private details of a sportsman's life, and particularly when the scene of his exploits is laid within " the four seas of Britain." In the customary course of field adventure, few besides the individual concerned are much interested in the successes and disappointments he experiences ; and rural sports are, in all their general incidents, so essentially alike as to render their minute description almost invariably a dull and unprofitable record.

Circumstances, however, may occasionally create an interest which in ordinary cases would be wanting. From local connexions, a field almost untrodden by any but himself was opened to the writer of these sketches. He was thrown into an unfrequented district, with a primitive people to consort with. With some advantages to profit from the accident, a remote and semi-civilized region was offered to his observation ; and although within a limited distance of his Majesty's mail-coach, a country was thus disclosed, as little known to the multitude as the interior of Australasia ; and where, excepting some adventurous grouse-shooter, none had viewed its highlands or mingled with its inhabitants.

That the scenic and personal sketches are faithful, the reader is assured ; some were written on the spot, and others traced from vivid recollection. Those with whom the author shot these wild moors, or fished these waters, will best estimate the fidelity of the descriptions ;

X villi PREFACE.

and one valued friend, though now beneath another sun, will probably recall the days he spent by " fell and flood," and bring to memory those light and joyous hours when he caroused in a mountain bivouac and rested in a moorland hut.

With regard to the tales and legends narrated in the succeeding pages, the former were told just as they are introduced. " The Blind Seal " is known to be substantially true — I have heard it from many, and never knew its veracity impugned. My lamented friend was himself the principal actor in " the Night Attack " ; and he, poor fellow, was exactly the man who, in an affray or a carouse, might be depended on.

Respecting the legendary stories, I have no pledge to offer for their authenticity — Old Antony believed them to the letter — I have given them nearly in his own words, and I may say, with Sir Walter Scott,

" I cannot tell how the truth may be, I say the tale as 'twas told to me."

" The Legend of Knock-a-thample " remains as the Otter-killer related it ; but with " Rose Roche " I confess to have taken liberties, in suppressing a portion of her flirtation with the *' black-eyed page," which although, upon the lady's part, I feel convinced, was perfectly platonic, yet by uncharitable constructions might be tortured into something like indiscretion.

If I have undervalued those rural recreations in which many a worthy citizen sometimes dissipates, I hope my contempt for his avocations will be ascribed to the true cause, namely, that local advantages have spoiled my taste and rendered me fastidious. He who can shoot grouse upon the moor will spend little time in killing pigeons from the trap ; the angler who in a morning

PREFACE. XIX

hooks some half-score salmon would reckon it but sorry amusement to dabble in a pond. To a Galway rider, the Epping hunt would be a bore, and he would probably treat it with the same contumely that one of this redoubted body did hare-hunting, by riding to the hounds in morocco sUppers, and carrying an open umbrella to protect him from the sun.

As I have casually named " an honoured name," I lament that it was not his fortune to have visited those interesting scenes, where I have been so long a useless wanderer. The wild features and wilder associations of that romantic and untouched country would have offered him a fresh field whereon to exercise his magic pencil — and many a tale and legend still orally handed down, but which, in a few years, must of necessity be forgotten, would have gained immortality from the touch of ** the mighty master." But alas ! the creations of his splendid imagination will no more delight an enchanted world. The wand is broken, the spell is over, the lamp of life is nearly exhausted — and even now Scotland may be mourning for the mightiest of her gifted sons.

As a votive offering, this Volume is inscribed to that matchless genius, by an humble but enthusiastic admirer of Sir Walter Scott.

Sydenham,

September 12, 1833.

Chapter I. Autobiography

London, July ist, 1829.

Notwithstanding its dust and desertion, I am still lurking in the metropolis. The heat has become intolerable— yesterday I imagined myself in Calcutta — for never but in the land of curries and red pepper did I experience anything so oppressive.

I breakfasted this morning at the Club-house. My air and attitude, as I caught a glimpse of them in a concave mirror, looked exquisitely disconsolate. Never was mortal more ennuye than I. Town has become a desert — the world has abandoned it by general consent— the streets feel as if they had been recently fanned by a sirocco ; and of divers unhappy beings whom I encountered in my walk from Grafton Street to St. James's, none seemed at ease but a bilious gentleman from Bombay and the French fellow who exhibits in the oven. The thermometer, in a shaded corner of the room, is stationary at 82 deg. To remain longer here would be suicidal ; but, where to go — whither to fly — alas ! I know not.

2 V/ILi) SPOx^TS OF THE WEST;

Would that you were near me, then should I be certain of sympathy and counsel — for at this moment there is not a more persecuted gentleman in the King's dominions. But I will make a clean breast — and to render my confessions explanatory, I must favour you with some particulars of my private history.

As autobiographers enjoy a prescriptive privilege of exhibiting their ancestors, I shall take the liberty of introducing my papa. In his twenty-second year, Mr. Hector O'Brien was a bold Lieutenant of Grenadiers in his Majesty's 50th Foot, then distinguished by the flattering title of '' The Dirty Half Hundred."* My father was as strapping a fellow as ever wore a wing, kept a showy horse, and was decidedly the best dancer in the regiment. Being quartered in the vicinity of Bath, he attended the assemblies, and " in double quick " managed to effect a conquest. The lady had a fortune, and my father required one. Unluckily, she had a brother's consent to gain ; and, on being consulted, he was unmoved by importunity, and deaf to " every plea of love." The case was hopeless. Mr. Wamsley disliked Ireland, detested military men, and above all things abominated " The Dirty Half Hundred."

To account for the gentleman's antipathy to this celebrated corps, it will be necessary to remark that the regiment was then afflicted with a mad Major. His (the Major's) delight lay in drinking port wine and slaying pheasants. Mr. Wamsley, on the contrary, preferred water and preserved game. The Major beat up preserves without remorse, and deforced keepers, who, though good men and true, prudently declined

* From their black facings, the 50th received this sobriquet.

joining issue with mad majors and double-barrelled guns. Now, Mr. Wamsley, resisting an invasion of his rights, applied to the Justice for redress, whereas Major O'Farrell considered that a reference to the pistol would be much more gentlemanly — a deadly feud was the consequence, and Mr. Wamsley was closely blockaded within his park walls by the military deUnquent. Fortunately for all concerned, the regiment got the route ; Mr. Wamsley recovered his liberty, and his detestation of the gallant 50th only ended with his life.

But his sister held a very different opinion respecting the merits of the brave " Half Hundred." She was devoted to the Lieutenant of Grenadiers, and the route hurried matters to a crisis. The result may be anticipated. Despising park walls and surly keepers, Mr. O'Brien overcame every difficulty, and with the assistance of a garden ladder, the mad Major and his double-barrelled gun, he carried off the lady, and at Gretna they became *' one flesh."

Mr. Wamsley was irritated beyond the possibility of being appeased. Ten thousand pounds, which his wife possessed without the control of her brother, enabled my father to leave the army, and settle on his hereditary estate in Roscommon ; and there he hunted, shot, fished, and farmed, and lived just as Irish gentlemen lived some thirty years ago.

I was the only issue of the marriage. All communication had ceased between my parents and Mr. Wamsley, and eighteen years passed away, and no appearance of abated displeasure had ever been evinced by this implacable relative. I left a public school for the Dublin University, was destined for the Church, and had nearly completed my college course, when an unforeseen event changed my prospects and profession. It was the death of both my parents within the brief space of a month.

My father's affairs were in great disorder — ^his estate was heavily embarrassed, and if his debts were paid it was ascertained that I should be left nearly destitute. The intelligence reached Mr. Wamsley, and, to the astonishment of all acquainted with his unrelenting animosity to my deceased parents, a letter was received from him, inviting me to visit him at his magnificent place, Lalworth Castle.

The invitation was of course accepted. I arrived, and found him a stern, disagreeable old man. My first appearance was against me — for the resemblance I bore to my father was most striking, and it seemed to recall my uncle's long-cherished prejudices. He abruptly asked me on the succeeding morning, " What course of fife I had selected ? " I replied, ** That the army appeared best adapted to my taste and broken fortunes." His only observation was, " Be it so " ; and here this laconic conversation ended.

That evening, Mr. Wamsley wrote to his neighbour, Lord Ulverston. The peer was his debtor to a large amount, and generally trafficked with him for his borough

of bury. My uncle's request was promptly

attended to. Lord Ulverston stood well at the Horse Guards, and in a few weeks, to my unfeigned satisfaction and surprise, I was gazetted to a Cornetcy in the Blues.

But my joy at this event was but of short duration. The miserly disposition of my uncle took alarm at the large outlay attendant on entering an expensive corps

Each hundred was doled out with painful reluctance, and the knowledge that a certain annual allowance would be requisite for my support made him still more wretched. I joined the regiment ; my subsidies — generally drafts for a paltry fifty — were " few and far between." To hold a certain place in society, with an income incompetent to its expenses, is a state of inexpressible misery. Gradually I became embarrassed, and in two years found it necessary to exchange from the Blues to a Light Cavalry regiment, then stationed in the East Indies. My uncle made no objection ; he was tired of what he termed supplying my boundless extravagance, bade me a cold farewell, and his parting words, as I stepped into the carriage, were a request that I would " write but seldom, as postage from the East, his lawyer told him, was enormous."