IT WAS billed by some critics as the charge of the green welly brigade – but rural Ireland on the march was rather more of a hobnailed affair. While hunting may have aristocratic pretensions, its followers tend to be more down-to-earth types.
Groups of demonstrators arrived from as far afield as Donegal and Roscommon, Leitrim and Kerry. The pro-hunting demonstration had been called by Rise (Rural Ireland Says Enough), a group campaigning to preserve “traditional rural pursuits and field-sports” who oppose the proposed bans on stag hunting and fur farming as well as new regulations on dog breeding.
The measures were included in the renewed programme for government at the insistence of the Green Party. Organisers had signposted directions to ‘‘Park and Walk’’ facilities for protesters which should surely have pleased Ciarán Cuffe, the new Green Party Minister of State responsible for sustainable transport.
Hunting horns blared as the noisy, but peaceful, march proceeded along the quays, led by six huntsmen on horseback. Placards announced the presence of groups ranging from the “Cork City Mink Hunt” and “Wicklow Foxhounds”, to the “East Waterford Gun Club”.
Most of the marchers were men, but women and children were significantly present. They included Temple Bar resident Imelda O’Donnell, a self-described “Tipperary woman trapped in Dublin” and a supporter of the Ward Union Hunt. From “a staunch Fianna Fáil household”, she would “never vote for the party again if stag-hunting is banned”.
Rosemary O’Connor, representing Ireland’s oldest hunt – Cork’s Duhallow Foxhounds, established in 1745 – said “this is our heritage”. Patsy Walsh (15) of Ballingarrry, Co Tipperary, from the Jessfield Harriers (who hunt on foot with hounds), believed the Government “won’t get the ban through”.
The demonstrators found their quarry at the Tower Hotel, where the Green Party convention was cordoned off behind crash barriers and a large force of gardaí. An hour-long rally featured speakers including Gavin Duffy, a well-known huntsman and member of RTÉ television’s Dragons’ Den panel. He derided the Green Party for prioritising a ban on hunting at a time when the country has “almost half a million people unemployed”, a “health service in tatters, schoolchildren in pre-fabs” and when “people who are sick, sore and tired of the Government can’t get out of the country because they can’t get a passport”.
The crowd cheered when he called on Fianna Fáil TDs to “wake up” and claimed they stood “no chance of re-election” if they “take on rural Ireland”. He described Mr Gormley as “a fella on a bike in Dublin telling you how to run a farm”.
Green Party member from Cork, Brian McDonagh, said “the animal rights people in the Green Party have too much influence. I’m a Green Party member and I hunt foxes and mink, and I fish.”