The O'Conors of Castle Conor, County Mayo

I shall never forget my first introduction to country life in Ireland, my first day’s hunting there, or the manner in which I passed the evening afterwards.  Nor shall I ever cease to be grateful for the hospitality which I received from the O’Conors of Castle Conor.  My acquaintance with the family was first made in the following manner.  But before I begin my story, let me inform my reader that my name is Archibald Green.
I had been for a fortnight in Dublin, and was about to proceed into county Mayo on business which would occupy me there for some weeks.  My head-quarters would, I found, be at the town of Ballyglass; and I soon learned that Ballyglass was not a place in which I should find hotel accommodation of a luxurious kind, or much congenial society indigenous to the place itself.
“But you are a hunting man, you say,” said old Sir P— C—; “and in that case you will soon know Tom O’Conor.  Tom won’t let you be dull.  I’d write you a letter to Tom, only he’ll certainly make you out without my taking the trouble.”
I did think at the time that the old baronet might have written the letter for me, as he had been a friend of my father’s in former days; but he did not, and I started for Ballyglass with no other introduction to any one in the county than that contained in Sir P—’s promise that I should soon know Mr. Thomas O’Conor.
I had already provided myself with a horse, groom, saddle and bridle, and these I sent down, en avant, that the Ballyglassians might know that I was somebody.  Perhaps, before I arrived Tom O’Conor might learn that a hunting man was coming into the neighbourhood, and I might find at the inn a polite note intimating that a bed was at my service at Castle Conor.  I had heard so much of the free hospitality of the Irish gentry as to imagine that such a thing might be possible.
But I found nothing of the kind.  Hunting gentlemen in those days were very common in county Mayo, and one horse was no great evidence of a man’s standing in the world.  Men there as I learnt afterwards, are sought for themselves quite as much as they are elsewhere; and though my groom’s top-boots were neat, and my horse a very tidy animal, my entry into Ballyglass created no sensation whatever.