Thousands of hare coursing fans are due to descend on Ireland for the annual three-day national championships.

PRINCE CHARLES was pictured in newspapers out shooting with his eldest son Prince William’s girlfriend Kate Middleton in a sign of her growing acceptance in royal circles.

YOUR report on the foxhunting opinion poll (Irish Examiner, April 9) was most interesting.

Rival lobby groups battling it out over the future of fox hunting in Ireland have clashed over calls for an outright ban.

ANIMAL rights activists have targeted the parents of Britain’s first known human victim of “rabbit flu”, with telephone callers telling them his death was a “rabbit’s revenge”.

Animal rights activists have accused hard man Vinnie Jones of glamorising hare coursing and have ordered him to stay away from the National Coursing Meeting in Clonmel later this month.

The hare is safe in the North for another few months after the High Court in Belfast today upheld a effective British government ban on coursing.

British anti-hunt campaigners claimed today they had uncovered new evidence linking a prestigious hunt to man-made fox breeding sites.

Anti-hunt campaigners were today launching their General Election campaign plans aimed at ending the ‘‘sick culture’’ of animal cruelty.