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UCC Library and UCC researchers have made this item openly available. Please let us know how this has helped you. Thanks! Title Deer forests, game shooting and landed estates in the South West of Ireland, 1840 - 1970 Author(s) Ryan, John M. (Sean) Publication date 2001 Original citation Ryan, J. M. 2001. Deer forests, game shooting and landed estates in the South West of Ireland, 1840 - 1970. PhD Thesis, University College Cork. Type of publication Doctoral thesis Link to publisher's http://library.ucc.ie/record=b1323793 version Access to the full text of the published version may require a subscription. Rights © 2001, John M. Ryan http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Embargo information No embargo required Item downloaded http://hdl.handle.net/10468/1035 from Downloaded on 2021-09-30T07:04:18Z Deer Forests, Game Shooting and Landed Estates in the South West of Ireland, 1840 – 1970. A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy To The National University of Ireland By John Mathias (Sean) Ryan June 2001 Department of History University College, Cork Supervisor: Mr Kenneth W Nicholls CONTENTS Abbreviations Used 3 Acknowledgements 4 Introduction 5 Chapter 1 Wild Red Deer in Ireland: pre-History to1840. 9 Chapter 2 The Killarney Deer Forests: 1840 - 1850. 33 Chapter 3 The Killarney Deer Forest Clearances - Fact or Fiction? 46 Chapter 4 Victorianism and Nationalism: 1850 - 70. 69 Chapter 5 Ownership Changes: Land and Game, 1870 - 1899. 93 Chapter 6 Ascendancy Decline: 1900 -1929. 137 Chapter 7 'Good Business for Us': State Ownership and Jurisdiction, 1930 - 1970. 178 Chapter 8 Overview 222 Appendices 1-14 231 Bibliography Sources 245 2 Abbreviations Used BVMP Bourn-Vincent Memorial Park ESB Electricity Supply Board GAA Gaelic Athletic Association INJ Irish Naturalists Journal IRA Irish Republican Army JCHAS Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society JKAHS Journal of the Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society JKSEIAS Journal of the Kilkenny and South East of Ireland Archaeological Society JRSAI Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland KNP Killarney National Park MHA Muckross House Archives NAI National Archives of Ireland NL National Library OPW Office of Public Works OS Ordnance Survey PRIA Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy PRO Public Record Office, London PRONI Public Record Office Northern Ireland, Belfast RIC Royal Irish Constabulary UCC University College, Cork UCD University College, Dublin TCD Trinity College, Dublin 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Professor J J Lee, Head of the Department of History, UCC, for accepting me as a PhD student. I wish to express my deepest gratitude and indebtedness to my thesis Supervisor, Mr Kenneth W Nicholls, Statutory Lecturer in the Department of History, UCC, for his professional guidance and encouragement throughout, and for invaluable advice on historical research. I sincerely thank Charlotte Holland, Department of History, UCC, for her assistance and advice. I am indebted to the staff of many libraries and archives. In particular, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to John MacCarthy, librarian and archivist at Muckross House, for his unending assistance and willingness to freely share his great depth of knowledge. I gratefully acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Patricia O'Hare, archivist and librarian, to whom I am equally indebted, and likewise the assistance of Vivienne Heffernan and Anne Enfield, all of Muckross House Archives and Library. I sincerely thank Pat Dawson, Manager, and the Trustees of Muckross House, for permission to access the Muckross House Archives, and especially the Kenmare Papers housed there. I thank all staff in Muckross House for their helpful friendship. I wish to especially thank those who willingly gave their time in field interviews: Paudi Cremin, Peggy Cremin, Danny Cronin, Valentine Dawnay, Peter A Grehan, Dan Kelleher, Donal MacCarthy, Elizabeth MacCarthy, Fr. Quinlan, A W B Vincent. I thank the staff of Boole Library, UCC, and in particular Carol Quinn, archivist, for her assistance on the Grehan Papers. I thank Mrs Valery Bary for permission to access the Godfrey Papers at Callinafercy House, Killorglin, County Kerry. My thanks also to the staff of the following institutions: National Archives, Dublin, especially Rena Lohan; National Library, Dublin; Land Commission Office, Dublin, especially William Gannon; Office of Public Works (now Duchas), Dublin; Valuations Office, Dublin; ESB Offices, especially Robert Cullen and Yvonne Richmond; Coillte, especially Denis O’Sullivan; the Central Statistics Office, especially Noirin O'Neill and Mary Murphy; Trinity College Library, Dublin; Public Records Office Northern Ireland, especially Stephen Scarth; Cork City Library; Tralee Public Library; Public Records Office, London; British Newspapers Library, London; Cork Examiner archives, especially Anthony Dinan; District Court Offices, Killarney; Office of the Commissioner, Garda Siochana, Dublin; Military Archives, Dublin, especially Commander Victor Laing; Radio na Gaeltachta, Kerry. I am indebted to Michael Corkery, Solicitor, for free access to legislation literature, and my gratitude to William Kelly of Micromail Ltd for computer technical assistance. I thank Paudie O'Leary, Head Park Ranger, for assistance in the survey and measurement of stags' heads at Muckross House, and Peter O'Toole, Park Ranger, for information on alarm guns, both of Killarney National Park. My thanks to the Red Deer Commission, Inverness, Scotland, for providing Scottish deer forest addresses; to Professor Michael Moss of the University of Glasgow for information on Standard Life records; and to the Crown Agent, Windsor Great Park, London, for information from the Crown estate archives. I acknowledge the generosity of the Ordnance Survey Office, Dublin, for permission to use portion of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland Map, Killarney region, Permit Number 6455, free of charge for this thesis. I thank the Head of the Department of Irish Folklore, UCD, for permission to quote from the Commission's collection, and especially Bairbre Ni Fhloinn of that Department. I thank Nell Spillane for permission to quote from her unpublished 'The Life and Times of Mary Herbert', in Muckross House Archives. My thanks also to the following: Trevor Boate, Joan Carroll, Commandant P D O'Donnell (Retired), Jim Fitzharris, Patrick Wyse Jackson, Hans Jorgensen, Tom Kelly, Dr Laing, Jim Larner, Breandan O Ciobhain, P J O'Hare, Mike 'Kenmare' O'Sullivan, Bill Quirke, Annette Rohu de Foubert, Eric R G Shelswell-White, Paddy Sleeman, James Villiers-Stuart, Jonathan Young. Finally, my sincerest thanks goes to my wife Peggy for her encouragement, unstinting support and unrivalled patience. 4 INTRODUCTION The views expressed by Richard J Evans, Professor of History at Birbeck College, University of London, succinctly encapsulate the thinking and approach to this thesis. Evans has challenged the view, long held, of history which mattered being about a handful of powerful men and great national and international movements, arguing instead that this was a 'rather snobbish and elitist attitude'1. Irish historiography in the 20th century has given scant attention to the sporting lives of Irish aristocracy and landed gentry, the great landlords who controlled much of the country and owned nearly 90 per cent of it. If that aspect of their lives was considered at all, it was predominantly in the judgmental context of a nationalist and republican ethos that lumped them dismissively as the 'rifle, rod and gun brigade', a hard- drinking, fox-hunting group whose rack-renting practices to support that lifestyle had earned the odium of their tenants, and scorn of the peasantry. Analyses of the effects of that sporting lifestyle, and how the peasantry reacted to it, have been very few, and generally anecdotal. One serious historical research on a specific period of fox hunting has been in the context of the nationalist and land agitation movements during the second half of the 19th century2. What effects their hunting and shooting had on the populations of deer, ground game and gamebirds, and the resulting legacies from prolonged exploitation of both native wild and imported quarry species, in the aftermath of the gentry's dissolution, are questions largely untouched from an analytical historical perspective. Equally omitted from Irish historiography is the pertinent question of the state's reactions to acquiring landed estates that held deer and game, and its subsequent management of game and deer species, and habitat conservation. Were all of the Irish ascendancy really like the stereotyped image that much of nationalist historiography has portrayed ? Did Irish nationalists and republicans eschew the field sports of gentlemen, or willingly participate in them and cooperate with the landed classes? Were the inhabitants of the 'Big House' devoid of human feeling, irresponsible in their business, and profligate in their lifestyles? Was their attitude anthropomorphic or atavistic towards the animals and birds they killed?, and did the landed gentry manage their game and deer purely for sporting pleasure, or for hard commercial exploitation? Did action on the hunting and shooting field enforce a rigid class structure, or break it down and cross-infect aristocrat and peasant? When their great landholdings were split up and returned to the people under successive Land Acts and the aegis of the Land Commission, how did the state manage those estates it acquired? What legacies