Avril, you say that the dogs can’t bite or “eat” (?) the hares…unfortunately they can and do forcibly strike the hares…maul them… pin them to the ground…and toss them into the air like rag dolls. Face the facts Avril. When a hare suffers internal injuries such as bone breakages, these cannot heal. And hares that don’t measure up are fed LIVE to greyhounds in so-called “blooding sessions”. Sport”? I don’t think so. Regarding stress…the hare is one of a number of wild species that fall victim to Stress Myopathy…an extremely stressful experience can literally kill the animal, not immediately, but hours or even days after the ordeal. Hare coursing a “tradition” in Ireland? What has that got to do with whether it’s acceptable or not? The industrial schools where all those innocent boys and girls were horribly abused, and the Magdalene Laundries where girls who conceived “out of wedlock” were detained in concentration camp like conditions were also deemed part of our great Irish “tradition”. Does that make them any less cruel or indefensible? The fieldsport of dog fighting was once also a great tradition in Ireland. Not any more. Open your eyes. See Hare coursing for what it is: A cowardly, deliberately cruel, and one-sided non-sport in which hares are terrorized for fun and profit. Are you not even a LITTLE BIT curious as to why Australia banned it…or why Scotland banned it in 2012…England and Wales in 2004…and Northern Ireland in 2011? Your defence of this despicable abuse reminds me of how Irish politicians and their clerical side-kicks covered up and tried to whitewash the hallowed “traditions” of another era. I suggest you have a re-think Avril. Take off the blinkers and emerge from denial. In years to come, people will look back and wonder how this generation could ever have tolerated an obscenity like hare coursing. Do you wish to count yourself among those who backed this thuggish and disgusting form of animal cruelty?

Savage photo

Re Week in Photos…that picture of a hare “taking a tumble” is another reminder that muzzles on the dogs have not taken the cruelty out of coursing, as the “sport’s” apologists have been claiming. Hares are still mauled, tossed about like toys, and subjected to a variety of injuries, internal and external. They are terrorized for a cheap thrill and a gamble- nothing to do with “upholding a great tradition” etc. Re the crowds at the National Coursing Meeting in Clonmel, many of the fans came from countries where hare coursing is a criminal offence. Ireland is one of the last bastions of this organised animal baiting event. Hardly something to be proud of.

Ed, the objection to coursing is not so much about killing. Coursing involves snatching the hares from their nautural habitat, confining them in unnatural captivity, and then frightening the living daylights out of them for a bit of a laugh. Hares are injured or traumatised or both. Hares also die AFTER coursing due to the effects of Stress Myopathy. In the wild a hare is either killed quicked by a predator or it escapes…by contrast the coursing ordeal lasts weeks and is one hundred percent unnatural. What cats get up to has nothing to with coursing. I agree dogs should be kept under control, and that includes hunt dogs that kill or mutilate many farm animals every year owing to continuous incursions by fox and harrier hunts.

Biased? Were the legislators in all those other countries that banned hare coursing also biased, Ed? Biased in favour of animal protection perhaps. Biased towards not wishing to cause unnecessary suffering to a defenceless animal for “sport”. I made no media comment whatsoever on the celeb cook you refer to. You must be confusing me with someone else. I notice that coursing apologists very often use diversionary tactics (“whataboutery” some call this) when they can’t defend their “sport”, like drawing attention to what cats might be getting up to, which has nothing to do with the issue. Or they ramble on about hares getting killed on the roads etc. Dogs get killed on roads too, but that doesn’t make dog-fighting any less cruel. These are distinctly separate issues. Each cruel practise must be judged on its own merits.