The day FF sold out rural Ireland
The party's stance on the Ward Hunt is out of touch and will cost them, says Gavin Duffy
The contortions of our politicians over the Bill to ban the Ward Union stag hunt makes for an intriguing spectacle. Let me declare my interest here.
I am pro-fishing, shooting and hunting. I further confess to the following -- I eat meat, visit the odd circus and have thoroughly enjoyed days out at Dublin Zoo with the kids. So I am at odds with the Green Party, which campaigns for an outright ban on all forms of hunting and traditional circuses, and which also opposes Dublin Zoo. I refer you to its website and 2005 policy document.
However, I have to admit that John Gormley is proving to be a man of steel. His persistence at bending Fianna Fail to his will reminds us all that he was once the star of the 'wrangle in the triangle' when he put manners on Michael McDowell.
More remarkable is the coming of age of the Labour Party. It is transforming into a truly national party, readying itself for government. When Willie Penrose stopped speaking at last Tuesday's parliamentary party meeting, having explained that Labour stands on the cusp of becoming a truly national party -- and this was the issue to demonstrate that fact -- not one urban-based TD or senator questioned his logic. As many as seven rural Labour politicians had spoken passionately about why the party must oppose the ban on stag hunting.
Of course, everyone has now woken up to the fact that, after Enda Kenny's outwitting of Richard Bruton, one of the brightest political minds in the Dail belongs to Phil Hogan who ran the Kenny campaign. So it should be no surprise that last January, at lunch with his former colleague, Ivan Yates, Hogan rubbed his hands with glee that the Greens had sleep-walked Fianna Fail into the fatal error of allowing hunting on to the political agenda.
He explained that any move against any rural pursuit was suicidal for a large party. You won't actually gain any urban votes from it, but it will cause the party to lose seats in rural constituencies.
Hogan immediately convinced the leader of the opposition to make it Fine Gael policy that not only would the party oppose the ban, but if it was passed Fine Gael would repeal it in Government.
Last week we saw an unprecedented seven Fianna Fail politicians stand up in the Dail and damn their own legislation. It is no secret that deputies Thomas Byrne and Mary Wallace of Meath East have said that this issue, in Ward Union heartland, is going to lose at least one of them their seat. Byrne has reportedly said that he will vote with the party, and if he was to lose his seat, having demonstrated party loyalty, he would hopefully win a seat in the next Seanad.
This weekend there are rumours in the constituency that Mary Wallace is contemplating that abstaining on the vote and the subsequent loss of the party whip might guarantee her re-election. She is not the only rural Fianna Fail backbencher contemplating such a stand. And the independents, Michael Lowry and Jackie Healy-Rae, are to seek meetings with Brian Cowen. The cost of their support has just gone up -- again.
Yesterday's protest in Trim, attended by thousands, was held there to highlight that the hunting, shooting and fishing community believe that it was Noel Dempsey, in particular, who sold them out. The minister mistak- enly believed that as there was only one stag hunt, banning it would go largely unnoticed.
If further proof was needed that some Fianna Fail ministers have been in power so long that they have lost touch with the grassroots, surely Dempsey is the outstanding example. That he misjudged the depth of feeling in his own constituency is shocking. His Fianna Fail constituency colleague, Johnny Brady, spoke forthrightly against the Bill in the Dail as he anxiously put some daylight between himself and the local minister.
But it is easy for people who don't know horse racing and its interconnection to hunting to misjudge the significance of the Ward Union Hunt. The Green Party genuinely believes that it can be replaced by a drag hunt. It is called a drag hunt because someone goes ahead of the hounds and drags a sock with a simulated, synthetic scent. The hounds follow this and the riders follow on and they all have a great day out.
Better still, why do you need hounds? Why can't the Ward Union just get the horses to race across the country? Why not build fences on a pre-determined route from, say, the steeple of a nearby church to one in the next parish, a kind of "steeple chase"? To keep them all on the one track, why don't we erect white rails to guide the horses and let's call it a national hunt? Let's have the ultimate test, we will call it the Grand National and let's run it at the Ward Union's kennels at a place called Fairyhouse in Co Meath.
The Greens don't realise that the Ward Union invented the ultimate form of hunting without a quarry -- it is called National Hunt Racing.
But for the horses who gallop around in circles on our race tracks and the jockeys who ride them, they need to get the odd day out in open country to really recharge their batteries. Silver Birch was a great racehorse but had grown tired of the track. Gordon Elliott brought him hunting with the Ward Union for a season and then brought him back to Aintree, where he won the Grand National.
Ruby Walsh, Barry Geraghty, Paul Carberry and a host of jockeys have gone on record saying they need the Ward Union Hunt for the fast, cross-country run you only get from a deer "jumping like a stag". When you've ridden with the Ward Union a few times, Beecher's Brook at Aintree looks a lot smaller.
The other unique thing about the Ward Union is that the objective is never to kill the stag, but to recapture it by putting it to bay with the hounds. In truth, it is likely that more blood will be spilled today between Meath and Dublin in Croke Park than there is at a Ward Union Hunt, yet the Greens persist in calling it a "blood sport".
But John Gormley is the man of steel, and Fianna Fail is weak and desperate. The one group of Irish sports stars who are truly world-class, our jockeys and our National Hunt trainers, are to be ignored on this issue. But everyone who owns a horse in Ireland, from a humble fat pony to a star of the turf, will remember it was Fianna Fail who sold out rural Ireland and horse racing.
Originally published in
