Magnificent sunshine greeted the attendees at the inaugural Irish Red Setter Club’s Open day in the beautiful surrounds of Birr Castle. The conference room had been decorated with handsome portraits and photographs of some famous red setters from the past both from the working and show lines. The back of the room offered club memorabilia including club plates, ties, badges, stickers and towels, managed by Siobhan Grace
Owen Lane, Honorary Secretary welcomed a full attendance and gave his thanks to Lord and Lady Rosse for the use of their excellent facilities. He gave a brief history of the history and tradition of the club, established in 1882, by Hawker and Fieldtrap of the famous Garryowen dog. He put the clubs history into perspective as the Irish Kennel Club itself was only formed in 1922 by Michael Collins.Brian Grace, chief organiser of the event, gave an insightful talk of the breed standard of red setters from a showing viewpoint. He went through each physical characteristic of the dog and gave standard measurements and ideal traits for each. The scissor bite, top over bottom was one such area explained as was the standard measure of a dog’s hock, which is the part we may refer to as the ankle. Too long a hock would give the dog a gangly gait and not provide adequate power to cover arduous ground in its work.
After a break to the castle coffee shop where the club provided scones, cream and homemade jam the presentations resumed with Hugh Brady’s talk on the sport of field trials. Field trials are a little known international sport and are open to English Setters, Gordon Setters, Irish Red & White Setters, Irish Red Setters and English Pointers. There are 14 clubs spread geographically around Ireland all competitions are run under the Regulations of the Wildlife Acts and by licence from the Irish Kennel Club.
The aim of the competition is the dog seeks birds such as pheasants, grouse, snipe or partridge by covering ground is a consistent manner to the left and right of the handler. This ensures there is less likelihood of missing a bird. The dog is always worked into the wind. When the dog finds a bird he “freezes” and remains stationary till the handler instructs the dog to walk towards the bird and make him fly. The dog does not chase when the bird flies but sits down by the handler. The bird usually rises up to 30 feet from the dog.
After a good deal of questions from the audience, Kristin Jameson, Club P.R.O. introduced some insightful videos demonstrating working dogs.
Some of these videos were of the highest standard and showed the intensity of the red setter on point. There followed further videos of red setters working on snipe. Kristin Jameson was ably assisted by Aisling O’Dwyer, daughter of Club President Raymond O’Dwyer.
A superb lunch followed again in the Castle Coffee shop. The highlight of the day would be the working demonstration. We were indeed fortunate to have Paddy Collins and Vice President Eric Lynch, both of whom have won the Irish International Championship stake, to manage the demonstration. The clouds darkened and unfortunately we were greeted with some heavy downpours but this did not dampen expectations. Eric Lynch’s young dog pointed stylishly and worked out to a pigeon which was then released from the trap. This was repeated before Joe O’Sullivan owner of the famous Mountlake Banner, expertly allowed one of his dogs “back” or “honour” the forward setting dog. It was truly a sight to behold!
The next demonstration was a dog running freely with a pigeon placed in the high meadow. Joe O’Sullivan’s current field trial dog “set” or pointed the pigeon from 100 yards or more and walked out to the exact location producing the bird in fantastic fashion. The crowd were very appreciative of this excellent piece of dog work and handling. Hugh Brady ran his young red dog, Ballydavid Airforce to demonstrate quartering and the dog covered the field evenly with great speed. Finally there was a brace demonstration with Joe O’Sullivan’s hard running dog and Joan McGillycuddy’s Creg Rena. They gave a masterful exhibition and were quite competitive. Paddy Collins ensured a really professional demonstration whereby the gallery could see all the finer points at close contact while not interfering with the dogs work or concentration. His explanation throughout the demonstration made it understandable for people unfamiliar with the sport. Finally a workshop was run whereby attendees, who had taken their dogs got an opportunity to point on the pigeons. Paddy Collins gave advice and handled the dogs thereby increasing their intensity.
Lastly after a sojourn through the famous Birr Castle gardens there was a Show Demonstration which allowed everyone participate before a group photo to finish.
The event was a great success and there was enormous support from the red setter committee and other triallers that turned up to provide advice. Attending from the Red Setter Committee was Eric Lynch (VP), Kristin Jameson (PRO), Paddy Collins, Joe O’Sullivan, Anthony Mulhall, Sylvie Crossan, Fr. Seamus O’Neill, Owen Lane (Sec), John Phillips (Treasurer) and Brian Grace.
View the presentation given as a pdf by clicking here
