Stop peddling lies about Ward Hunt 'ban'
Fox hunter gathers his hounds. Photo: Reuters
Why are people allowed to get away with peddling the absolute lie that the Ward Hunt has been banned (Letters, July 8)?
The Wildlife Bill 2010 does no such thing.
All it does is ban the bit at the end in which a living animal is torn to pieces. It makes no mention of the Ward Hunt.
Those members of the Ward Hunt will find that when the 'hunting' season starts again, like their UK hunting friends, they will be perfectly able to gallop across fields with their dogs and enjoy the social aspect of the hunt gathering, as they have continued to do for decades.
The only bit that will be different is that the end of the 'hunt' will not involve the painful and slow death of a petrified terror-stricken animal.
We live in 2010, not 1810, so I'm curious to know exactly what sort of person considers the death at the end of a hunt to be the best part of it?
Would you let someone like that look after your children?
The real revelation about the Wildlife Bill is that, despite all our claims to be modern and sophisticated, you don't have to dig too deep to find the backward, socially repressive violent gombeen Ireland we were told was in the past.
That's the really scary thing.
Desmond FitzGerald
Canary Wharf, London
I see "racegoers with a love of their sport" are bemoaning the loss of the Ward Union tradition of "proudly" leading in the winner at Fairyhouse this year ('Cowen won't get big race welcome', Letters, July 8). I'm sure the stags won't object to the absence of their former antagonists from this sporting spectacle, and neither will the victorious horses for that matter.
As for Brian Cowen, well I'm sure he can handle a hostile reception much better than the beautiful, docile stags, foxes, hares and badgers do, when the "pack" descends on them.
John Fitzgerald
Kilmacow, Co Kilkenny
When proponents of hunting live unsupported in forests or coverts, or up trees for years on end -- and then endure being chased and hounded over hill and dale, through hedges and over ditches while carrying a horse on their back -- only then can real discussion on the subject begin.
Michele Savage
Dublin 12
Irish Independent
