Irish Daily Mail’
16th February 2010
Now we start a fightback to save the rural way of life
The silent majority must stand against a noisy but misguided cabal of greens bent on ruining country ways and livelihoods, argues Christy Reynolds, Chairman, Ward Union Hunt
The traditional way of life in rural Ireland is under severe pressure. Farmers’ incomes have been falling, schools, Post Offices, Garda stations, County Council offices and local hospitals are closing. Now, the people of rural Ireland face a new threat, this time to their traditional field sports of hunting on horse or foot, coursing, game shooting and even angling. Soon an Ireland that is distinctive and loved by so many people – urban as well as rural – may be lost, never to be restored again.
These immediate threats stem from a number of Green Party-inspired pieces of legislation that are being promoted by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, John Gormley TD, and the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Trevor Sargent TD.
A weak Green Party leadership, beholden to the vociferous animal rights caucus in their party in the run up to the second Lisbon Referendum sordidly traded an attack on the values of rural Ireland in return for delegate votes at their national convention. In turn, a weakened Fianna Fáil party, needing the Greens to cling to power, allowed that attack to become part of the Renegotiated Programme for Government.
The result is that a tiny, vocal minority of Green ayatollahs are dictating a legislative agenda that threatens the livelihoods and pastimes of tens of thousands of people in our villages, towns and countryside.
The first example is John Gormley’s Bill to outlaw so-called puppy ‘farming’. Puppy ‘farming’ is where gross over breeding of litters takes place regularly and the pups are sold on a commercial basis. He has drafted his proposed law in such a way that scores of voluntary hunt kennels throughout the country are threatened. This is despite the fact that he concedes that they are run to strict standards. Unlike puppy ‘farms’, hunt kennels breed only a handful of pups each year to maintain the numbers in their packs and none of these are sold commercially. He is doing this in spite of a written assurance given by his predecessor, Dick Roche TD, that hunt kennels are not part of the problem and a similar assurance given by himself. We have always guessed that a politician’s verbal promise ‘ain’t worth the paper it’s written on’ but we thought at least his written promise might be.
In the Department of Agriculture, Trevor Sargent TD is cooking up an Animal Health and Welfare Bill. He has confirmed that it will contain a new legally enforceable duty of care towards animals. The implications of this for farmers and pet owners – apart from enthusiasts of field sports – could be serious. It could become illegal not only to hunt and shoot for recreation, but even to race horses and greyhounds against each other. That would wipe out sporting industries that contribute more than €1 billion annually to the economy and employ tens of thousands of people, many of them in places where jobs are hard enough to come by.
The people behind these moves are intent on creating a meatless, petless and joyless society. The only legal recreation left to people in the countryside will be to go for a walk but they won’t even be allowed bring their family doggie if he prefers to stay indoors, because that would infringe the animal’s ‘rights’.
As Chairman of the Ward Union Hunt, which hunts deer in north county Dublin and county Meath, I am deeply concerned at John Gormley’s proposal to publish a Bill sometime before Easter to ban our hunt. If he persuades a majority of TDs and Senators to enact this law, the fundamentalist opponents of hunting will be emboldened and the next targets on their hit list will be other sports like fox hunting, hare hunting, beagling, shooting and fishing. Some Green Party representatives are sending out messages to the effect that ‘We are only banning stag hunting’. A ban on all field sports is official Green Party policy and will follow whenever they seize the political opportunity. For tactical reasons – using the ‘thin end of the wedge’ – they have decided to first target stag hunting by the Ward Union.
The Ward Union Hunt has been extremely well run since its foundation a hundred and fifty five years ago. We operate under the terms of a very strict licensing, inspection and monitoring system, by Government veterinarians, imposed by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in 2000. We are required to obtain an annual licence to hunt deer with hounds and we have successfully applied for licenses since 1977.
What happens in a typical day’s hunting? A mature, healthy deer is transported in a purpose built transporter to a selected location. The deer is released and after a prescribed period of time the huntsman introduces a restricted number of hounds and the hunt sets off to follow the deer’s scent. The purpose of the pursuit is not, nor has it ever been, to kill the deer but to pit the skills of the huntsman, the hounds and the riders against the deer’s prowess as an animal of natural flight.
At the end of the chase, the deer either evades capture or is brought to bay and is recaptured manually by designated, trained followers. In 1997/98 senior veterinarians from the Department of Agriculture monitored every one of our hunts. They assessed the deers’ welfare during the hunt, afterwards and subsequently, against a combination of recognised parameters. In summary, their report found that the health of the deer did not appear to be adversely affected either in the short or the long term.
In the depths of the greatest economic crisis ever faced by the State – with more than 400,000 people unemployed – it is scandalous that legislators’ time will be frittered away trying to prevent me and a handful of my friends and neighbours in counties Meath and Dublin from pursuing a sport rooted in Irish folklore, history and tradition. That is why we have joined with other sporting groups in forming a new, national campaign called RISE! Rural Ireland Says Enough! (www.risecampaign.ie)
A Dáil or Seanad vote to ban our hunt should not be dealt with on party political lines, like the Finance Bill or the Social Welfare Bill. If the Green Party are confident that people support the proposed ban they should allow a free vote and persuade a majority in both Houses to support it. It would be ironic if the government fell because of the Green onslaught on the Ward Union Hunt and the people of rural Ireland. However, as Albert Reynolds ruefully remarked ‘It’s the little things that trip you up’.
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