Against flow of time
Sometimes reviving original Irish setters seems swimming against the flow of time. Recently, publication of The Irish Red Setter, the first Irish book on Irish setters since 83 years, ensures the original Irish setter is not out of time, but has time on its sides again.
Retrieving a heritage back
Far too long a book on Irish setters written in Ireland was missing. Whole generations of fanciers of this breed worldwide grew up with lessons, provided by non-Irish sources. The Irish Red Setter, its history, character and training by Raymond O'Dwyer ends this.
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The last Irish book on Irish setters was written by colonel J.K.
Millners The Irish Setter (1924). In 83 years following, a flood of books was
written, especially in English speaking nations, the most influential by people
only active in showing.
So the image of the Irish setter was almost completely stamped by non-Irish.
This stamp led in many cultures to quite a lot of misinterpretations of
standards. As for issues like size and color, the author clears a lot of
misunderstandings.
Often for the first time, fanciers of the breed worldwide can enjoy pictures
Irish Irish setters and their forebearers, like The Blacksmith. That makes the
book opening up for non-Irish cultures a hidden treasure-room of the breed,
retrieving a heritage back to its homeland.
Above is the review of The Irish Red Setter on the website of Cork University Press, publisher. So: good news for everybody who always wanted to know Irish views on Irish setters. Here a somewhat longer version, as done in the column Flashes from Freshnoses in Ierse Setter Klanken (Irish Setter Sounds), club magazine of the Dutch Irish setter club.
As if time stood still
Already the cover of 'The Irish Red Setter' is different than most other publications in recent history. On it a light colored alert looking Irish setter. If you compare with covers on Irish setter books from the United Kingdom or USA, you would almost swear this deals with three breeds.
That cover makes clear that 83 years of silence of the Irish had a lot of effects. In a nutshell: the Irish lost the steer on developments of their national hunting dog. Probably the Irish setter chosen for the cover by the author, chairman of the Irish Red Setter Club so mother club of all other clubs, would not even get a place in standard works of both other nations.
Ears of the 'cover Irish' fit three to four times in ears (plus hair) of an Irish setter on covers of books in the USA. More versions of this head are needed to fill the head of an average American show winning type. It is compared to show family much shorter.
Pure colors
But for the average reader, it is the color making the eye-catcher. Pictures of Irish setters with colors like that are here as well, but mostly in old picture books of the sixties. I've never seen it myself but according to experts in that time this was the color of one of Hollands most famous Irish setters in the fifites, Ethlinn O'Cuchulain. "Near to orange", one of them told me once.
Seeing the cover Irish, I remember an old lesson from the sixties. At the time the breeder of Ethlinn, Jan Hesterman. told me that the light color ('rich golden chestnut', he said) was stamp of the most purest tribes of Ireland. And that breeder knew them, right to the days of roots of French Park setters, being a keen student of pedigrees.
The book of O'Dwyer documents, that these old lessons were correct. In his opinion the darker color comes from crossings. That way he explains why the darker version is often heavier and thicker boned. Also the often seen white markings on workers, is in his eyes worthwhile noting.
Caricature
For that but also other reasons, the author criticizes trends in show rings in English speaking nations (including Ireland). In his eyes many a show bred Irish setter became a 'caricature' of his fore bearers. In a nutshell he criticizes people who were responsible for these trends, that they forgot the original, an Irish setter without exaggeration in everything like height, weight, length of coat and so on.
Irish pride stamps book
Irish pride stamps the Irish Red Setter. Not for nothing the Irish setter became the symbol of the national bus enterprise Bus Eireann.
Publication of the book was made possible by a contribution of the Irish Heritage Council. It is dedicated to "those people, alive and dead, whose interest and dedication to the Irish red setter has ensured its survival as working dog". You do not read this in other publications.
The Irish Red Setter focuses on pedigrees of Irish Irish setters. That differs a lot of the average show breeding. Students can benefit from that. For sure in times, like now, that the breed is suffering from an according to experts alarming high inbreeding coefficient.
Keydogs
Personally I found it great to see at last a picture of Derrycarne Red Admiral of Rye, key dog in the first postwar Irish import in the Netherlands, Derrycarne Harp. This bitch called Kells and her daughter Ailean were my favorite Irish setters as a boy, also inspiring my very first publications.
The Admiral was one of the key dogs in the fifties chosen by dr Deeny, dr Patrick Mulligan and a still young John Nash as a fundament under the new working Irish setters. Nasth started at the time the later legendary Moanruad-kennels. O'Dwyer and his wife had their first Irish setters from that kennel. The author can be seen as a student of Nash, who tragically died in storms in 1990.
Other key dogs were the field winning New Square Red Lassie, Fermanagh St Rua, Joyful of Killone, Fastnet Rock en Red Blaze. Later came a bitch from the kennels of Florence Nagle, Sulhamstead Nattie who started the most succesfull bitch line.
Heart beats faster
Of course the book of O'Dwyer is at his best in personal experiences. "Your heart beats faster while seeing an Irish setter on point", he writes. In my eyes those personal experiences could have been much longer.
Is this THE book on Irish setters? Yes and no.
Yes as Irish book on Irish setters. No, because it does not highlight much about cultures for the working Irishman nowadays extremely important like Norway. As well developments the breed made in many parts of the world are nearly not focused in The Irish Red Setter.
Most important question is how big the influence of The Irish Red Setter can become after 83 years of absence of Irish on bookshelves. For sure, it is a classic already.
(Shorter translation of Flitsen uit Frisse Neuzenland, Ierse Setter Klanken January 2008)
Henk ten Klooster
adjusted March 5, 2008.