Tony O'Shea - Kingdom of Hounds

KINGDOM OF HOUNDS

KINGDOM OF HOUNDS TONY O’SHEA Text by Paul O’Sullivan

RRB PHOTOBOOKS BRISTOL

In memory of Con P. O’Shea

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Tony O’Shea For more than 30 years Tony O’Shea has maintained a creative

Liberator, Daniel O’Connell, the uncrowned king of nineteenth-century

preoccupation with the distinctive world of the Kerry Beaglemen in

Ireland, hunted his own pack in the rugged terrain above Derrynane.

their mountainous ‘Kingdom’. His images capture the interplay between

He was kinsman to the Ryans of the Tipperary Scarteen Hunt whose

drag-huntsmen and their hounds against the landscape and weather of

‘black and tans’ were - uniquely for this breed - a mounted hunt, and their

these harsh uplands. The photographer is native to this place, returning

kennel was influential in maintaining the blood line. Edith Somerville, co-

annually to capture the rituals of pursuit re-enacted in the drag hunt. The

author of the Irish RM stories, rode out as Master of the West Carberry

huntsmen are his neighbours.

Hounds but she also kept a foot-pack of Kerry Beagles, her true passion.

The hounds too are indigenous to this windswept rain-washed mountain

The Kerry beagle clubs and the drag hunt aficionados of Fairhill on the

mass caught between valleys drowned by retreating glaciers. Prevailing

northside of Cork City belong to a more democratic world, devoted to a

south-westerlies from the Atlantic drive sheets of rain deep into the high

people’s sport that shares little with the privileged world of the mounted

ranges of South-West Kerry. Torrential and often continuous downpour

hunt. For those who nurture the Kerry beagle there are no kennels or

in winter makes for a sodden, mist-engulfed landscape; and while the

hierarchies. The dogs are bred and trained by the huntsmen, owned

sun may warm the summer hills to a version of pastoral they’re always

household by household. Neither hound nor man acknowledges a

subject to the whim of unpredictable shower-bursts. Sky and light

master.

change with the hour. Four seasons, it is claimed, can be experienced in the span of a single day. Whatever the season, when rain is not present

Courage, speed and endurance are bred into these hounds. These are

it may well be threatening.

not the small dogs of the fox hunt, but stand twenty-three inches or more at the shoulder, with the conformation of a natural athlete. In

There is little forgiveness in this landscape for man or hound. Many of

Tony O’Shea’s images they are a powerful physical presence as they

Tony O’Shea’s images feature drenching rain that huddles the huntsmen

emerge in a quicksilver burst from car boots and trailers, or are caught

under the scant shelter of a stunted hedgerow or a parked van. The men

in steeplechase flight across a high bank, or navigate with precarious

are stoic, attuned to this world of slough-pasture and mountain and the

balance the vertical hazards of barbed wire. A platoon of brave bobbing

cold misery of unremitting rain. The photographer finds the authentic in

heads swim up-river against a strong river flow, in an image that is both

the faces he captures, sculpted by lived experience and environment.

thrilling and strangely moving.

The Kerry Beagle is one of only nine Irish breeds recognised by the Irish

Local lore traces the breed to dogs who survived the wrecked galleons

Kennel Club and the hounds have heritage as well as pedigree. The

of the Spanish Armada which foundered on the Kerry coast, but it can

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boast an older lineage, likely descendant of medieval staghounds with a

seeking, scanning through mist or peering into the sun with shaded

possible admixture of French blood. In turn, it is acknowledged as one of

eyes. Groups congregate, eyes focussed hill-ward or skyward, awaiting

the pillars of the hunting breeds of the southern United States. In recent

the coming of the returning pack.

decades, drag hunting has increasingly displaced mountain hunting and speed has become the sought-after trait, prompting selective cross

The starting point will often also serve as finish and a contagion

breeding with bloodlines from Cumbria.

of excitement spreads along the waiting line as partisans will their contending dogs to final effort. Frenzy dissolves restraint, pretence

Kerry Beagles are intelligent and docile as house-dogs, but it is on the

abandoned, despair and triumph stand stark on faces. Victory is ecstasy.

mountain terrain they display their attributes of scent and tongue and footing. They are unparalleled as scent hounds following the drag trail

Or the finish may funnel the racing hounds through a gap or gateway

of aniseed-soaked rags. In full cry the sweet music of the Kerry Beagle

where the huntsmen crouch in a choreographed ritual of retrieval, each

is unmistakeable; the rough-hewn harmony so loved by the huntsman,

in his assigned position, proffering a lure of food, as if supplicants with

a music as old as time wherever hounds and quarry enact the drama of

votive offerings.

pursuit.

Tony O’Shea has always been interested in groups in public spaces, Tony O’Shea is drawn to the drag hunt as a canvas where the story

their public presence and the private worlds of the individuals they

arc provides a developing drama. Under ‘starters orders’ the hounds

encompass. Here his compositions frequently enlist the everyday

stretch across the frame in a line taut with compressed energy; the

forlorn furniture of the bog and slough land - telephone poles and power

intensity of emotion is palpable; inhibition on the part of hound and man

lines and stays, a leaning five bar gate and skewed fence posts, lines of

is abandoned in an arena of naked competitive passion. Reputation is

barbed wire - to fashion a personal geometry which animates planes

in play beyond the winning of a trophy. Faces are conflicted as men

and sightlines in these gatherings. He likes to triangulate surfaces,

struggle to restrain their hounds, while simultaneously willing them to

to bring focus to an individual or group. He will seize upon the casual

power forward and seize advantage.

disposition of cars and vehicles and even the Golden Grill chip van to order the spaces he designs.

From the off, the dogs are quickly lost to the camera and the crowd.

The participants now too become watchers, scrambling for precarious

In these gatherings of individuals, he is a steadfast observer of the

footing across clumps of rough grass or racing to a crossing point

ordinary but he is alert to the moment where the incongruous or the

where visibility can be regained. Men, framed from above, ascend to

unexpected can tip the everyday into the extraordinary. His pictures are

high ground in single file as if pilgrims on a journey. A line of watchers

frequently celebrations, affirmations of comic rhythm and possibility.

takes formal possession of a hill crest. Now it is all about listening and

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A man sits accompanied by a pair of hounds at sunlit ease beside what

the perspective disturbed, by a foetal figure almost discarded on the

might almost be an olive tree - there are few trees elsewhere in this

grass bank in the background.

landscape or in these images- with a classical almost biblical resonance.

In other images the shading toward darkness is explicit rather than Three men lean against a wall, casual observers of activity in the distance

suggested. Weather provides the pigment, sometimes even the subject,

beyond. A hound stands at heel, his attitude conveys a profound lack of

of images so bleak they seemed drained of light. The starter of a Drag

interest, but loyalty and patience too, a study in infinite good-humour

Hunt, a crouched near-black figure, seems to be emerge not just from

and tolerance.

the dense enveloping mist but from sodden primordial earth. A scenario is revisited with men proceeding along a dismal track, where it seems

A watching huntsman leans against a grass bank, eyes searching. His

that all light is draining out of the frame as figures recede toward some

two hounds replicate his stance, companionable shadows to his search.

kind of infinity. The darkness is more than the physical absence of light;

Two men, identically dressed, make a precise and delicate traverse of

the figures seem caught in a ritual of departure.

an elevated dock, leading (it would seem) unseen hounds swimming somewhere below. The surface of the image is a series of planes; the

In all these images the subjects are an immediate and physical presence.

structure of a bridge strongly dominates the background and straight

But the power of Tony O’Shea’s compositions reverberates beyond

stone walls retain the body of water. The guessed-at presence of the

the domain and purposes of documentary. Huntsman and hound are

hounds in this ordered space - the absence implied - has intimations of

captured in their individuality and particularity and faces are discovered

mystery, even magic.

in moments which are poised between the communal and the personal, the ordinary and the out-of-ordinary. His vision orchestrates the play of

Another scene offers a sun-lit diptych. On one side three men make

sun and shade and shadow. Images flooded with light and energy sit

a bench of a grassy bank, comfortably presiding as if at a wake or

alongside uncompromising renderings of harsh endurance. Within a

courtroom. A shoeless prone figure stretched full length on the road

single frame the celebratory may be underscored by darker intimations.

elevates his head, perhaps to question the commentary of the wise men.

Animated by these tensions the images achieve an intensity which

To the right, in counterpoint, the grouping is mimicked by the wheels

compels attention. They are powerful testaments to the actual which

and gears of a casually abandoned bicycle. The ordinary resonates with

also resonate memorably beyond the frame.

strangeness, as if in a scene from Beckett.

What is strange and comic may sometimes veer toward the sinister. In a

Paul O’Sullivan

sunlit image the eye is drawn to the angled head of a hound luxuriating in the sensual delight of being groomed. But the image is complicated,

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Carhan, County Kerry 1991

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Letter, County Kerry 2008

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Carhan, County Kerry 1991

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Conaiceen, County Kerry 2013

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Carhan, County Kerry 1991

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County Cork 2006

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Coom an Easpaig, County Kerry 2001

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Valentia, County Kerry 2002

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Valentia, County Kerry 2006

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Finians Bay, County Kerry 2006

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Sussa, County Kerry 2012

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Valentia, County Kerry 2006

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Waterville, County Kerry 1993

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Letter, County Kerry 2008

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Coom an Easpaig, County Kerry 2008

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Ardcost, County Kerry 2003

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Waterville, County Kerry 1992

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Letter, County Kerry 2008

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Carhan, County Kerry 1991

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Swollen river, Carhan County Kerry 2005

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County Cork 1995

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Swollen river, Carhan County Kerry 2005

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Carhan, County Kerry 1991

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Reen Caheragh, County Kerry 2001

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Sussa, County Kerry 2012

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Reen Caheragh, County Kerry 2001

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Conaiceen, County Kerry 1996

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A. Reen Caheragh, County Kerry 2001

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County Cork 1996

B. Reen Caheragh, County Kerry 2001

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Carhan, County Kerry 1997

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Finians Bay, County Kerry 2012

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Ballinskelligs, County Kerry 2003

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Ballinskelligs, County Kerry 2011

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Sussa, County Kerry 2012

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Finians Bay, County Kerry 2008

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Pound, County Kerry 1994

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Coom an Easpaig, County Kerry 2005

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Letter, County Kerry 2008

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Letter, County Kerry 2008

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Carhan, County Kerry 1999

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Carhan, County Kerry 1991

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Carhan, County Kerry 1996

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Carhan, County Kerry 1991

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Carhan, County Kerry 1991

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Pound, County Kerry 1994

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Finians Bay, County Kerry 1999

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County Cork 1997

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Valentia, County Kerry 2001

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Finians Bay, County Kerry 2013

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Carhan, County Kerry 2005

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Letter, County Kerry 2008

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Gurrane, County Kerry 1996

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Waterville, County Kerry 2012

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Carhan, County Kerry 1991

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Cahersiveen, County Kerry 2006

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Carhan, County Kerry 2005

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Kenmare, County Kerry 1996

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Finians Bay, County Kerry 2013

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Kenmare, County Kerry 1996

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Carhan, County Kerry 1991

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County Cork 1990

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Waterville, County Kerry 1998

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Cork City 1992

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Coom an Easpaig, County Kerry 1998

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Ardcost, County Kerry 2008

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Reen Caheragh, County Kerry 2008

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Kenmare, County Kerry 2014

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Letter, County Kerry 2008

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Kenmare, County Kerry 2014

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Letter, County Kerry 2008

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Kenmare, County Kerry 2014

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Valentia, County Kerry 2007

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Finians Bay, County Kerry 2012

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Ardcost, County Kerry 1995

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Reencaheragh, County Kerry 2006

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Carhan, County Kerry 1997

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Ballinskelligs, County Kerry 2012

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Kenmare, County Kerry 2014

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Letter, County Kerry 2008

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Carhan, County Kerry 1993

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County Cork 1996

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County Cork 1996

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County Cork 2003

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Kenmare, County Kerry 1996

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Conaiceen, County Kerry 1996

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Valentia, County Kerry 2006

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Kenmare, County Kerry 1991

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County Cork 2005

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Valentia, County Kerry 2005

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Carhan, County Kerry 2002

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County Cork 2005

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Thank you to the Kerry Beagle Association and Cork City and Cork County Beagle Association.

Thank you to Craig Atkinson, Josie Atkinson, Montserrat Benet Morella, Bobby Burton, all the staff at Photo Museum Ireland, Bridie Gilligan, Tommy Gilligan, Tanya Kiang, Trish Lambe, David Monahan, Patrick O’Donoghue, Con O’Leary, Conn O’Shea, Pat Pidgeon, Sarah, Keelin and Siuin, Jessamine Thoemmes-Tondowski, Rudi Thoemmes, Colm Tóibín.

And a very special thanks to Paul O’Sullivan, Daniel Scully and Brían Sparks for their immense contributions.

RRB Photobooks, April 2023 Photographs © Tony O’Shea Text © Paul O’Sullivan Selected and Sequenced by Tony O’Shea Edited by Josie Atkinson Layout and Image Production by Jessamine Thoemmes-Tondowski Printed at Taylor Brothers, Bristol, UK. 978-1-7397023-4-2

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