Banning of blood sports would not represent an attack on rural Irish life

SIR – A cohort of TDs and local politicians with the proverbial brass neck is spinning the line that the campaign to ban blood sports represents an attack on life in rural Ireland. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, live hare coursing and point-to-point race meetings (a vital fundraising event for a hunt) are banned.

For politicians to assert that blood sports are the foundation of living in the countryside is arrogance devoid of reality. The recreational killing of animals for entertainment does not pass the day and time for the vast majority of those with a countryside eircode.

To be conscripted into the ranks of the pro-blood sports movement will come as a shock to rural dwellers who wish no harm to wildlife. For them, the co-existence with wildlife is part of the appeal of living and working surrounded by green fields.

Blood sports in all its killing guises does not enhance country living. Its odious presence destroys the essence of living and working alongside the natural environment.

Those who live and work in rural Ireland need to be active in rejecting any duplicitous attempt by the Irish hunting community to draw them into supporting killing wildlife for fun by proxy.    

Politicians who act as a mouthpiece for animal abusers will be leaving themselves open to the view that they see nothing wrong in promoting animal cruelty while trying to draw in votes from the constituency of the pathologically vicious.

John Tierney,

Campaigns Director,

Association of Hunt Saboteurs,

PO Box 4734,

Dublin 1.