A PASSION FOR HUNTING

Fox hunting arouses fierce passions, for and against, in England, but nowhere do they ride to hounds, or for that matter roister until dawn, with more gusto than in Galway. PATRICK COONEY reports from the last redoubt of the Irish Ascendancy. Photographs by SEAMUS MURPHY

It's a land of mad gallops across damp turf, of hot whiskeys to ward off the freezing Atlantic mist at early-morning meets, of hound-rustling between rival packs, of jealousies, feuds and minor treacheries. North Galway is perhaps the best hunting country left in the British Isles, a last redoubt of the old Protestant Ascendancy, and a bolt-hole for red- blooded individualists fleeing the sensitivities of the modern world: men like John Huston, the film director, who lived here for 20 years and became hunt master of the famed Galway Blazers, or ``Pick'' - John Pickering - a rotund, red-faced Englishman who stepped straight from the pages of an 18th-century novel and is huntsman to the North Galway Hunt.

But things are set to change here, where time seemed to stand still for so long, trapped in the pre-republican Ireland immortalised by Sommerville and Ross's Irish RM stories, and the raggle-taggle cast of players who make up the Galway hunting fraternity are going to need all their wiles and native cunning to survive intact. For there are dark rumours of wealthy hunt masters under siege in the English shires setting their sights on the 60-minute plane hop to Galway if hunting is banned by law in the UK. And there is a more corrosive threat from within. The characters, "the galloping majors" and "collapsing dowagers" who make the Irish hunt what it is, are dying off. Old traditions are crumbling, and new money and the disposable income of the international tourist class are proving difficult opponents.

Take, for example, the case of Philip Jones versus the North Galway Hunt. An age-old tale of the locals and the blow-in, it has developed into a cause clbre, with all sorts of muttered threats over the hot whiskeys, and court action pending.

Jones, a self-made millionaire scrap merchant, arrived in Galway from the Isle of Man in 1992, and bought Castle Hackett House, an imposing pile outside the market town of Tuam. His arrival was initially welcomed by the hunting fraternity. The funds of the North Galway Hunt were severely depleted - perhaps, it is said, by fingers in tills - and Jones's offer to put the books straight was opportune. He cleared the debts, reportedly £200,000, on the condition that the hunt be signed over to him, lock, stock and barrel. An extraordinary general meeting of the hunt's members was called to consider the matter, and the offer was accepted. The North Galway was once more a going concern, under the benevolent control of Philip Jones.

But it seems that Jones had another agenda, in a file marked "leisure and corporate hospitality". There were plans for an equestrian centre, the flying in of overseas clients to hunt, and the transformation of Castle Hackett House into a hotel and conference centre. The dreaded word "leisure'' exposed a fatal flaw in Jones's plan. For to the Galway hunt fraternity, fox hunting has nothing to do with leisure: it is life itself, around which everything else must revolve. To locals, the whole scheme stank of a big business take over; they'd sold themselves down the line.

So, in a classic Irish manoeuvre, the hunt reformed under the former administration, and the season's calendar was drawn up. Philip Jones found himself the proud owner of a set of scarlet tails, a neat heap of headed paper, and not much else. Then he did the unforgivable: he started legal action against the hunt. What little local support he had evaporated, and he now lives in Castle Hackett House isolated from all. Quite understandably, he feels cheated, and claims that the hunt took his money and ran. The North Galway, meanwhile, insists that he wanted a private pack - that is, a maverick hunt not recognised by the Irish Masters of Fox Hounds Association - for his high-flying visitors, and is fighting his action.

According to one local, Jones's card had been marked from the beginning. "Molly detested him from the off, and for Jesus' sake the man can't ride. Can you beat that? He can't ride."

To be honest, Jones's alleged lack of equestrian skills is not the crux of the issue; a fair number of hunt members prefer the dressing up and chin-wagging to the reality of mud, water and sweat. His real offence, it appears, was to ride roughshod over local sensitivities. He even had the nerve to hold a hunt ball in Castle Hackett House -a bash that was promptly boycotted by Lady Molly and everyone else. And when Lady Molly's imprimatur is withheld, it is wise to pack your bags and scoot.

Aged anywhere between 84 and 94 according to her mood, Lady Molly Cusack Smith still rules this area of north Galway like a feudal fiefdom from Bermingham House, her crumbling 18th-century mansion. A true sacred monster, Lady Molly must be approached on bended knee and with head bowed. She is still beautiful, and defies the years of hard living and tough hunting. One local informed me that you know you are accepted once Molly has told you to "Fuck off". With a tongue like a hatchet and a cruel wit, she is both loved and feared; and, at an age when, frankly, most people are dead, she is still lording it over the locals, who adore the abuse and worry what it will be like ``when Molly goes".

And that's a real worry, far more unsettling than Philip Jones and the threat of legal action. Although long retired from the saddle, Molly's presence at a hunt ball or at the sending off of the hunt is a reassuring sign that all is well. For more than 60 years, hunting in Galway has meant Lady Molly Cusack Smith. She was the only female master at the Galway Blazers and founded the Bermingham and North Galway Hunt.

Her own legendary hunt ball is the high spot of everyone's social calendar. For longer than people care to remember, Bermingham House has been thrown open in early January to host the last hunt ball in Ireland that is still held in the ``big house''. Each year, Molly announces wearily that this will be the last, and across Ireland and beyond black ties are pressed and ball gowns taken out of storage. People say that when Molly goes, the ball goes, and that'll be another nail in the coffin of hunting in north Galway.

Unlike most hunt balls, which are held in provincial hotels, Molly's is a free-for-all that takes over every room of sprawling Bermingham House. Unrestrained by concierges or curfews, the party has all the unbridled ferocity and carelessness of a dismounted hunt. The ringmaster of the whole affair is John Pickering, the North Galway's huntsman and Lady Molly's perfect foil, bowing and dancing attendance when she's moody, and roaring with laughter when she abuses him. A rotund, red-faced man in his fifties who comes from an old hunting family in Warwickshire, Pick fled England after a broken love affair and found a true and natural home in north Galway 20 years ago. He is the catalyst at the ball, circulating with guests, slapping backs, and bellowing on his hunting horn.

Lady Molly took a tumble over Christmas and appeared frail on a walking frame at this year's ball. She had not done her usual social-ising and singing, and retired early. Several ancient attendants muttered that if it wasn't the last ball, it would most certainly be Molly's last. But spirits soon lifted with the aid of much "buck leaping" and spontaneous blowing of hunting horns. In the fading ballroom, a local band worked its way through a varied repertoire as revellers waltzed across the scrubbed boards. The drummer was particularly talented in keeping the bass pedal and snare going while playing a trumpet solo. The kitchen was packed with suits and ballgowns, a priest in conversation with the local vicar, while a maid in black dress, lace cap and pinny served wild salmon from a platter. On the central staircase, representatives of the surviving "Irish-tocracy" - among them the Knight of Glin, the Earl of Rosse and Marina Guinness - swapped stories and peered imperiously at the assembled multitude below.

Here was a perfect illustration of how the Ascendancy in decline has managed to preserve a few of its traditions by opening them up to the indigenous Irish. It was a sure sign of the times that most of the velvet-clad stunners gliding over the chequerboard marble spoke with broad Galway accents, and not the cut-glass, strangulated ``West Brit'' vowels you might expect. The Earl of Rosse, all black velvet and flopping locks, cut a dash with Grace Pym of Ballaghmore Castle on the dancefloor, but they were heavily outnumbered by burly men with beady eyes and broad farmers' hands, squeezed into tight dinner suits. Here were "the plain people of Ireland", be-suited and coiffured, tucking into the canaps and sherry trifles under the stern portraits of their one- time betters and oppressors, and paying £30 a head for the pleasure. One veteran of the ball confided, "Years ago, this lot wouldn't be let in the front door at all. It was all your royalty and aristocracy. Now there's so few left she needs the locals to keep the whole thing going."

Next morning, Lady Molly had recovered sufficiently to hold audience in her private rooms, sipping Cork Dry Gin in front of a blazing fire. The house was being mopped and scrubbed, and in the kitchen the last revellers were brewing tea. It had been a "grand night", with Molly's frailty forgotten and talk of a fist-fight (which had necessitated the calling of the Gardai) dominating the slurred conversations.

"Come back in February if you want to see the other side of the coin," I was advised, "make sure you get back for the North Galway Hunt Ball." I was confused: surely last night had been the North Galway Hunt Ball?

"Not at all. That was Molly's Hunt Ball, the Bermingham Hunt. It used to be the `Bermingham and North Galway Hunt', but it split when Molly's daughter Oonagh Mary [Hyland] left for a private pack and..." And I begin to feel the sense of utter confusion that Philip Jones must have felt. What was certain, though, was that I had to come back for the next ball. One deb, perched on a table sipping tea, warned me, "It won't be like this, you know. It's all dentists and hairdressers. I'd steer clear if I were you."

A month later, I'm sitting in Gay Browne's Select Bar in Tuam, trying to get some warmth in a crowded fireplace. Browne's is famous for many things, not the least of them being the spiritual home of Tuam's very own superstars, the Saw Doctors. More importantly, combining the shop- cum-grocery function of the traditional Irish pub, it blends and packs its own tea and salts its own bacon, so your company can be interrupted by a man carrying half a pig through the tiny bar to be salted in the shed outside. My face was now well known, and I'd attracted a large number of giggles and winks as I entered. This was due to my turning up at the same bar the night before, resplendent in black-tie finery - and precisely 24 hours early for the hunt ball. "The man who turned up one day early for the North Galway Hunt Ball" - Bateman would be pleased. There's nothing the rural Irish like more than a man making a fool of himself, particularly if he's not a local. I'd earned full marks for turning up in "fancy dress", as black-tie was referred to, but any embarrassment had been immediately covered with a pint on the house and an update on the local scandals.

Philip Jones was still pursuing legal action, apparently, and Lady Molly was off the walking frame and expected to attend the ball, but I was not to expect "the nobs" at this function. It would be a local affair held in the Hermitage Hotel and indeed a glimpse of how hunting was adapting to survive in Galway, leisure and conference centre or not.

The banqueting suite was packed, with Molly looking a little better at the top table. It had all the restrained air of a large family wedding. The locals were indeed out in force; there were no "galloping majors" or "collapsing dowagers", just the broad Galway brogue and multi- coloured bow ties.

An auction to raise funds for the hunt followed the meal. Lots varied from the usual horsey items - a tin of saddle-soap, or an antique gold stock pin - to the more bizarre and, some would say, peculiarly Irish. These included "a 60-foot lamppost, as seen on the Maynooth by-pass", or "two pallets of house bricks". Most startling of all was lot number 35, "a male vasectomy", kindly sponsored by Dr John Waldron. Who bid for it and what the bidding reached, I don't know. By that stage of the proceedings I was ensconced on the balcony with the Hon Wendell Gustafson von Hillerstamm, overlooking the mle. A bulky gent in scarlet tails, "Gus", an honorary consul who boasts connections to Swedish royalty, was one of the few "characters" at the ball. Like an admiral on his poop deck, he surveyed the disco below, and was pleased.

"That's what I like to see," he motioned at the dancers, "a complete mix. That's the only way the hunt will survive."

He tapped his foot appreciatively in time with the pounding beat. But what of Jones and the court case? And what of the threats of beleaguered hunters in the UK relocating and setting up private packs? Gus was discreet, allowing himself only a wry smile.

"We'll see off anyone who tries to take over the hunting here,'' he said. ``It's a tough place to barge in on. He shouldn't have crossed Molly, that was a big mistake."