The time has long come for hare coursing’s end
It falls to Jimmy Deenihan, the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Affairs, to decide if a licence will be issued to permit the 2013-14 hare coursing season to take place.
The fact that this annual assault on the Irish hare, by a section of Irish society still rocking on its knuckles, needs ministerial approval shows that when it comes to animal welfare in this country, we really are residing in Darwin’s waiting room.
Of course the minister could make a statesman’s gesture and refuse to issue this annual hare abuse licence, to rise above parochial issues and political cowardice in order to embrace the principle of respect for the non-human members of society. But given his previous form in expressing a view on hare coursing, that is a big ask.
To echo the maxim, all political lives end in failure – and that is the fate awaiting this minister, who comes with a litany of failings: failure to protect Irish heritage, failure to eradicate a vicious activity that has been rendered illegal in more civilised countries; and a failure to promote respect for the wildlife of this country.
With this stacked up against him, the minister, in his political dotage, could be regarded as a politician who was content to remain as a parochial lackey of the sweepings and refuse of our society while having the long-lasting political impact of a tissue hitting the floor.
Since the first recorded enclosed live hare coursing meeting back in 1893, Ireland has endured 120 years of this vile activity. It has caused the deaths of hares and greyhounds on an industrial scale for the sole purpose of gambling. The time has long come for its abolition.
Can we expect this Minister to do the decent thing and allow hare coursing to fade into the history book, to wipe clean a stain on our culture? Or will the screams of dying hares continue to provide the soundtrack to Ireland’s moronic attitude to animal welfare?
John Tierney
Association of Hunt Saboteurs
