Protect the hare
Liam Clancy
Sir -- Watching RTE's Val Falvey TD on Sunday night reminded me that life does indeed imitate art, or slapstick comedy as in this instance.
The advice given to Ardal O'Hanlon's fictional Dail deputy is typical of how the Fianna Fail and Fine Gael parties responded to Tony Gregory's 1993 Private Members Bill to ban hare coursing, a Bill obliquely alluded to in the programme.
Instead of considering the issue on its merits and looking at the gross cruelty involved, both parties opted for what was politically expedient ... and a coursing ban was deemed by the party apparatchiks to be completely out of the question.
Deputies who had previously voiced revulsion at the very mention of hare coursing shuffled through the Dail voting lobbies to reject the 1993 Bill. Not too surprisingly, given the immense power and prestige at the time of the politically connected greyhound industry.
And so the humble hare had to continue running for its life at the baiting venues, its life and death struggle on the coursing field an issue that even a Green party holding the balance of power in our present government seemingly cannot bring to an end.
But I find myself in agreement with the canny and well-founded advice given to the gormless Deputy Falvey concerning how to vote on a new anti hare-coursing Bill: it is today perfectly reasonable, politically plausible, and ethically sustainable for members of Dail Eireann to support a fresh initiative to ban hare coursing because public opinion on the issue has altered.
According to opinion polls, a substantial majority of Irish people now favour the abolition of this blood sport, so I hope that real life TDs will soon have an opportunity to vote on a Bill to protect the Irish hare.
John Fitzgerald,
Callan, Co Kilkenny
Sir -- They laid him low beneath the ground today. The last great Irish balladeer. His family and friends sang one of his favourite songs like a last farewell. He was a poet, raconteur, a person who lit up any room. Liam Clancy is gone and we are the poorer for it.
Liam, you will forever waltz Matilda. Drink from the parting glass and wish you were in Carrickfergus. You only had to speak to entertain. You hypnotised the listener.
Heaven should look forward to eternal craic.
Fred Molloy,
Clonsilla, Dublin 15
Originally published in
