"The Biggest Walls In The Counthry Was In It"

by Snaffles

Goutelette, Open Edition Print

Paper Size: 8 x 11 ins / 21 x 28 cm

This enchanting print is one of Snaffles best loved works. It depicts a meet of the famous Galway Blazers on Boxing Day, 1930. The Galway hunt was renowned for its fearsome stone walls, and the spirit of the occasion is conveyed beautifully. Snaffles had travelled to Ireland in the winter of 1930 with the express intention of hunting with the Galway Blazers and his host, one Colonel Kerans, was keen to fulfil this wish. When no hirelings proved available, Kerans procured an impetuous point-to-pointer from two nearby friends. A pause in the hunt revealed Snaffles to have fallen behind; anxieties were relieved when he reappeared, dishevelled after falling from his horse, but safely clutching the sketchbook to which he had committed the first basic outline of this print. In a piece of self-deprecating artistic licence, Snaffles includes a depiction of himself riding most foolishly at the far left of the scene, heading for a wet landing in a brook. This print was first published in The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News of 28th February 1931 as a double page, four-colour spread, and was then entitled: More and more walls. Dammit there are more walls than fields! It was later issued in the format seen here, with the altered title and the remarque of a large gentleman, Old Johnnie Smyth, poking at a wall with his boot before taking it on.




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