Follow Catalonia and ban shameful blood sport

THE Campaign for the Abolition of Cruel Sports (CACS), welcomes the historic decision by the parliament of Spain’s Catalonian region to ban bull fighting.

We hope this will prove to a first step towards the abolition of this bloody and practice in the rest of Spain.

Catalonia will now never again witness a form of so-called entertainment in which a noble creature is literally tortured to death in public for the pleasure of a blood-thirsty human throng.

While welcoming the Catalonian ban, however, we in Ireland have no cause to point the finger at Spain for as long as we permit the barbarity of live hare coursing, a practice in which animals are snatched from their natural habitats, held in unnatural captivity, and terrorised for “sport” at public venues.

As with bull fighting, apologists for hare coursing argue that it must be preserved and nurtured because it is part of our “tradition”, as if that could justify organised barbarism.

That pathetic excuse didn’t convince a majority of the members of the Catalonian parliament, and neither should it hold sway in the Dáil.

Let’s follow Catalonia’s example by banning a blood sport that shames our nation.

John Fitzgerald

Campaign for the Abolition Of Cruel Sport

Lower Coyne Street

Callan

Co Kilkenny