Politics makes most of the running in hunt

AS spectator events go, a stag hunt is about on a par with a session of the Stormont talks.

In both cases, the objective of the exercise (the stag/an all-embracing political settlement) disappears from view early on. There follows a period of rumour and counter-rumour concerning the exact whereabouts of the process, punctuated by occasional outbursts of noise (barking dogs/barking politicians).

Then (and here we temporarily abandon the Northern analogy), the protagonists emerge with a result, albeit (re-enter Stormont) with several different versions of how exactly it was achieved and what it means for the future.

The small Meath village of Kilmessan was home to a Stormont-size press gallery yesterday when the Ward Union Hunt arrived for its latest outing. The Union had attracted unwelcome attention recently when Michael D. Higgins granted it a licence after the discovery that it had been doing very nicely without one for several years.

So when the stag was let loose into the fields shortly before 1 p.m., with dogs and huntspeople in pursuit, a posse comprising hunt protesters, Michael D's monitors and the media contingent tried hard to follow.

The last-mentioned group included crack investigative reporters (some of whom, for example, had found Kilmessan at the first attempt). But they were quickly reduced to being part of the big traffic jam that snaked along the roads around the area in which the hunt was alleged to be happening.

Experienced hunt watchers interpreted the "action" from hedgerows. Meath is a flat county: from some of the better vantage points, you could see as far as the next hedgerow. But this didn't stop the expert commentators: "If he makes for the Boyne, they'll never catch him" was a typical comment from a man staring fixedly at an empty field.

Then, around 1.45 p.m. things quickly came to a climax. The deer had been surrounded in a clump of bushes in the Ennistown estate. Huntsmaster Sean Byrne and another man disappeared into the bushes to close the negotiations. Within a couple of minutes, the whole thing was over and Kilmessan was bathing in the fragrance of 60 sweaty horses and their riders.

The small group of protesters were suspicious. "This is a PR stunt - the hunt normally last four hours," said Bernie Wright of the Irish Anti-Hunt Campaign. "They can manipulate it to make it as short as they like," she added, without quite explaining the deer's role in the conspiracy.

"Everyone underestimates a deer," said Sean Byrne, nursing a pint outside the Sam Maguire bar, his scratched face looking like a relief map of the area. "A deer can run and jump and stand still when it suits him, and he has a lot of canny ability to get himself through the countryside.

It was put to him that yesterday's stag had been caught after 25 minutes and then subdued by only two men. If there was a professional regulatory body for deers, this one would surely be invited to attend the next monthly meeting and explain himself.

But Sean refused pointedly to badmouth the animal, which he assured everybody was in "perfect" condition and already on its way back to the deer farm. He was equally respectful about the State's regulation of hunting and expressed regret about the "misunderstanding" which had led to the union's licensing misdemeanour.

The Campaign for the Abolition of Cruel Sports has accused the Ward Union Stag Hunt of a "cynical" publicity stunt in donating £2,000 to Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin.