When fox-hunting is banned in England, Ireland will be hunt followers' obvious choice. Will they come, asks Grania Willis.

Ireland has almost 250 registered hunt clubs: 41 foxhound packs, 46 harrier packs, 129 foot packs that hunt foxes, 28 beagle packs that hunt hares and two staghound packs. There are an estimated 40 unregistered packs. The Duhallow Foxhounds claim to be the oldest pack in the country, with records dating back to the pack's foundation in 1745. Another Co Cork foxhound pack, the Muskerry, claim to have been founded in 1743, but they have no early records to back up the claim. The most recent addition to the Irish Masters of Foxhounds register is the Killultagh, Old Rock & Chichester, in Co Antrim, which switched from a harrier to a foxhound pack this year and is now called simply the Killultagh Foxhounds.

As hunt clubs gear up for traditionally their biggest day of the year, on St Stephen's Day, hunt followers in England and Wales are facing up to the possibility that this could be their last Boxing Day meet, as hunting with dogs is due to be banned in mid-February, following the lead taken by Scotland two years ago. The UK's Countryside Alliance is challenging the ban in court, but if the sport is stopped will Ireland be flooded with British hunt enthusiasts?

Kate Horgan, chairman of the Irish Masters of Foxhounds Association, believes hunt clubs will resist attempts by British hunters to move their sport here. "We can't afford an influx," says Horgan. "I don't think it's physically possible. The countryside itself won't take it, because we're not like the Shires in the UK, with huge fields that can take huge amounts of horses. The fields are much smaller here. But the Irish farmers won't have it anyway, and without them we can't hunt."

The Duhallow Foxhounds, founded in 1745, is the oldest pack in the country. Horgan has been master of the Cork-based pack for 18 seasons. She sympathises with British hunt supporters, but that sympathy doesn't extend to welcoming vast numbers of visitors.

"I feel sorry for them, but I really don't think they can presume to come over here in big droves. We want to keep hunting for the Irish, for ourselves. We've always had a certain number of UK visitors and Continentals, and that will continue, because it's needed for the tourism economy. But most packs can only take four to six visitors a day, because of the lack of hirelings. It's not like the old days: people just don't keep so many hirelings now.

"We have directed our members not to allow an influx of visitors if they want to keep hunting. They have to keep farmers happy. Any pack will tell you it's just not feasible." Of the British she adds: "We've been their back garden for 800 years, and they're not having it back now."

David Wilkinson, chairman of Countryside Ireland and spokesman for the Hunting Association of Ireland, also believes that self-policing is the best way to control visitor numbers. "We've always had limited room for tourist visitors," he says. "No hunt club can cope with more than half a dozen people, and that's a fairly standard number around the country. Most hunt clubs in Ireland are over-subscribed, and there is no geographical area left that could be physically hunted on horseback that hasn't been taken up."

Brian Murphy, general manager of the Dunraven Arms Hotel, in Adare, Co Limerick, specialises in organising hunting breaks. He averages between seven and 10 visitors a fortnight during the hunting season, offering days out with the Co Limerick Foxhounds, the Co Limerick Harriers, the Stonehall Harriers, the Scarteen and the Duhallows.

"There will be no influx from the UK, because the number of visitors to individual hunts is restricted," he says. "We'd prefer to keep the status quo, because we couldn't cater for an influx; the farmers wouldn't allow it and the hunts wouldn't allow it. There's no chance of a huge influx. They've no intention of coming over here. They want to hunt at home, and they'll work round the ban somehow, either through drag hunting" - when the pack follows a scent laid by the hunt organisers - "or some other form of hunting."

Willie Leahy, field master for nearly two decades with the Co Galway Foxhounds - better known as the Blazers - believes any increase in the number of hunting visitors should be welcomed. "Ireland should be viewing it as something good, not as something bad," he says. "We should turn Ireland more into a leisure place but at the same time compensate the farmers. But I don't see any big rush for a while, anyway. It'll happen a lot slower than we think. The English will do their own type of hunting."

As well as being field master, Leahy hires out hunters, providing horses for as many as 12 visitors a day. The Blazers' mounted field can be as large as 100 at the more popular meets, and, because of the nature of Galway farmland, the hunt could cross land belonging to as many as 70 farmers in a day.

The popularity of hunting in Ireland has increased hugely in the past 10 years. Hunt-club membership is now estimated at 10,000 around the country, with a further 10,000 to 15,000 people involved on the peripheries. But visitor numbers have decreased since the foot-and-mouth crisis in 2001, when all hunting was suspended.

Although landowners whose property is crossed by a hunt have a right of membership, being a local resident doesn't guarantee acceptance into a hunt club. Applications to become a subscriber can be turned down by the hunt committee, usually because of pressure on numbers.

So could British visitors circumvent the rules by purchasing land or property in Ireland, so that they can become subscribers? Neither Horgan nor Wilkinson believes this is viable. "Less than 1 per cent of farmland changes hands in Ireland every year, and most of that is being bought up by locals for development," says Wilkinson. "The English just can't compete. They'd find it very hard to compete financially with the wealth in this country. The Irish are the biggest property investors in the UK now."

Horgan says: "The British are land wealthy but not cash wealthy. The value of land in Ireland is so high they wouldn't be able to afford it. The majority of hunts in Ireland are oversubscribed with landowners and farmers and people from the area. Hunting is not an elitist sport in Ireland. The majority of subscribers are Irish farmers."

So will the ban in Britain, which does not extend to Northern Ireland, result in a similar ban over here? Last month, in a TV3 poll, eight out of 10 people voted against a ban on fox-hunting in Ireland. A month earlier, Sky News Ireland got similar results, with 76 per cent of those polled in favour of hunting.

Tony Gregory, the independent TD renowned for his anti-hunting views, is planning to bring a Private Members' Bill before the Dáil early in the new year, but Kate Horgan is confident that the sport will continue in Ireland. "Under the present Government I don't see for one minute that there will be a ban in Ireland," she says.

Jeremy Irons, whose portrayal of Antonio in Michael Radford's film of The Merchant Of Venice is garnering rave reviews, has added his voice to the hunting debate. The 56-year-old English actor believes Britain's hunting ban to be "one of the two most devastating parliamentary votes in the last century" and an "outrageous assault on civil liberties". He has pledged to support the Countryside Alliance campaign, but, as joint master of West Carbery Foxhounds, in Co Cork, Irons can continue to enjoy his sport here, no matter what the outcome across the water.