A ROYAL RESIDENCE IN IRELAND.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."' Sin,—In the Spectator of July 31st your appreciative article on a proposed Royal Residence in Ireland is, to my knowledge, consonant with the sentiment which is expressed less grace- fully by large numbers of the Irish people among whom the writer has lived, principally in the West. But I have to traverse your statement, made incidentally, that the Irish people are "born gamekeepers." Alas, it is far otherwise ! They are certainly born sportsmen, and it is at the instigation of this inherent characteristic that they become born poachers, not gamekeepers ; and those of us who do not preserve game have almost to confess to a surreptitious sympathy with them in thus defying the canonical law in obedience to that other, the law of heredity. There are signs, however, that the pre- vailing state is no longer to go unchallenged, and as it bears on other of your comments, I may just mention that the land. owners and sportsmen of Ireland have banded themselves together to try and do collectively what they have failed to do individually, by means of a Game Protection Association with headquarters in Dublin, which, among other things, has undertaken the task you commend, that of eventually bring- ing the shootings of Ireland into sporting condition, so that the English tenant will have reasonable guarantee of a fair return in game and amusement for his expenditure.—I am,
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