BALLYLUSKEY WHITE HEATHER HARRIERS 14 November
Ballyluskey White Heather Harriers, Cloneen, Co Tipperary
TO have a day with the Ballyluskey White Heather Harriers is to experience foxhunting in its purest form, stripped of pageantry or ostentation. The pack is the product of a 1952 amalgamation of the White Heather Harriers, long associated with the Shee family, and the trencher-fed Ballyluskey Harriers. Michael McCormick from Ballyluskey paints a vivid picture of those trencher-fed days.
“Me father had a few hounds, a mix of harriers and foxhounds,” he told me. “Billy Lalor had a couple of hounds. Eamonn Cunningham had four or five. Pat Slattery had a few. They’d all cycle to such a place and bring their hounds on after them.
“I often saw them hounds finish up in Ballyluskey, and all the boys would be inside in Guinans’ Pub drinking pints. The hounds would be coming back one by one and they’d all lie outside the door waiting. The boys would come outside and pick up their bikes and cycle off, and all the hounds would
