Related article: Golf 64 The Christmas Shows 66 A Great Billiard Match 70 Sporting Intelligence— Nov. — Dec ... 71 WITH Steel Engraved Portrait of The Baron de Robeck. Engraving: — Crumpled in the Air. The Baron de Robeck. All history goes to prove that Ireland is a most assimilative country, and makes foreigners and transitory visitors so enam- oured of her soil, climate, or easy ways, that not a few of them be- come permanent citizens, and often pronounced Irishmen. How it flared with the Firlbolgs and the Tuatha Danaans, we cannot say, but we are assured that the Mile- sians grew as Irish as the Autoch- thones (whoever they were), and that the Danes, after a few fights and cattle raids, and the despoil- VOL. Lxxi. — NO. 467. ings of a few rich shrines and sanctuaries, became admirable Irishmen ; for it is quite a mistake to suppose that Brian Borhoime, the victor of Clontarf, expelled the Danes from Ireland or severed the ties which bound them to the men and women of Leinster. Dublin has been proved to have been far more of a Scandinavian than a Celtic city, and perhaps the same thing might have been said of Limerick as well. The Spanish settlement in Ireland is enveloped in mystery, but we BAILY S MAGAZINE. IJanu ARY have the Pope's legate writing to his master Buy Cheap Acivir in the fifteenth cen- tury about the fast and "vic- torious" horses to be found in Ireland called " Auster cones " from Asturias. We know that the Norman annexers of portions Purchase Acivir Online of Ireland very soon felt the assimilating spell, and became " Purchase Acivir more Irish than the Irish themselves," till the statutes of Kilkenny, prohibit- ing under Buy Acivir Online the severest penalties the adoption of Irish customs by the men of the Pale, were passed to curb if possible the tendencies of nature and circumstance. Then later on we find the expatriated Huguenots became the best citizens of Ireland. Horace in his day lamented in indignant alcaics the degeneracy of the Roman army that had fol- lowed Crassus into Parthia, and gradually adopted Oriental Order Acivir cus- toms — i< Pro curia inversique mores ! " It boots not now to enquire into the causes that led to this assimi- lation. Sport may have had a good deal to say to it, for Irish falcons were famous, Irish greyhounds or wolfhounds noble creatures, and Irish horses as good perhaps as they are now, while from the earliest times we know that the national trend of opinion was all in favour of sport, as it is found in an early chronicle that the kings of Ireland were bound by solemn pact to encourage coursing and horse-racing by their presence, as it is written that he is to wit- ness coursing every Wednesday, and to devote Friday to horse- racing, while Sunday brought the duty of drinking ale, for, accord- ing to the Celtic Scholiast's gloss, "He is not a lawful chief who does not distribute ale every Sunday." This assimilative faculty finds splendid illustration in the com- paratively modern instance of the noble Swedish family of the De Robecks, who have been in Ire- land for three generations, and are now as racy of the soil, and as thoroughly Irish, as the most lineal descendant of Shane O'Neil or Rory O'More ; and show Irishism even in the extent of their families. True, the Swedish strain has been mingled with that of the MacGilpatrick, and since then with that of the Geraldines and the Lawlesses, but the fact remains that our subject is a typical Irishman in heart and soul, in speech, in manners, and in love of sport. His paternal grandfather, after serving in the Swedish cavalry (he was a Knight of the Swedish Military Order " of the Sword Acivir Tablets ") with distinction, married Anne, the daughter and heiress of the Honourable Richard Fit z Patrick, second son of Rich- ard, first Lord Gowran, and brother of Buy Acivir John, second Lord Gowran, who was created Earl of Upper Ossory, and thus became seized of lands, tenements and hereditaments in the counties of Kildare, Dublin, and Wicklow. His son served as High Sheriff for the CO. Kildare, the co. Dublin, and the co. Order Acivir Online Wicklow, after spend- ing some time in the 7th Hussars, and fighting under Sir John Moore. He had two families, one by the Honorable Margaret Lawless, eldest daughter of the second Lord Cloncurry, and the second by Emily Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Joseph J. Henry, Esq., and niece of the third Duke of Leinster. The present Baron de Robeck gave up soldiering when he came in for the avital acres, and wish- ing to live amongst his friends in Kildare, he had the task of building a house and enclosing a place. After hesitating between 1899] THE BARON DB ROBBCK. Killashee and Gowran Grange, he chose the latter, and has lived to see the firs which he planted attain fair size and height at Gowran Grange, which is within about four big broad pastures of the grand stand of Punchestown, and for these two days of the meeting in April there is not only open house, but open yard too, for the carriages of his friends who put up here in great numbers (by invitation, of course). Kildare, at the time we write of, was a very rising country in the world of sport. Sir John Ken- nedy, who almost created it and defined its boundaries, has had several successors, among the