English fox hunters ‘not welcome here’

ENGLISH fox hunters will not be welcome in large numbers in Ireland, following the House of Commons ban introduced last week.

Hunting groups here fear that allowing British hunters on Irish land would be the death of native fox hunting.

“If we started letting British hunters take part, hunting would stop overnight here because Irish farmers would not tolerate it,” said Kate Horgan, chairperson of the Irish Master of Fox-Hounds Association (IMFA). “We are sympathetic over what has happened in Britain, but Irish hunting is for the Irish and we want to keep it that way.”

According to Britain’s leading hunting magazine Horse and Hound, there is evidence that small numbers of people are moving permanently to Ireland to enjoy hunting as well as the rural way of life.

“I know of a few British people who have moved to Ireland simply for the hunt,” a spokesperson from Horse and Hound said.

“Ireland is considered a fun place to hunt without hordes of animal-rights protesters.

“But if the hunts say we wouldn’t be welcome then it is not something we would consider,” the magazine spokesperson said.

Noel Cosgrave from the Birr Equestrian Centre in Co. Offaly said: “Our farmers would block us from using their land if we started taking in the British.

“I suppose the memory of the British riding over them for centuries is still bred into the Irish farmer. Feelings like that still run deep in rural Ireland.”

The Association of Hunt Saboteurs has called on the Government to legislate for a similar ban on hunting in Ireland. The animal rights group said the British decision had galvanised its campaign to bring an end to fox hunting in this country.

The group has been lobbying for over 10 years for an end to blood sports, which it says includes hare coursing and shooting.

However, the IMFA spokesman Brian Munn said a ban on hunting in Ireland is ‘not inevitable’.

“We’ve a very different attitude towards it here, compared to Britain,” he said.

“We do not believe fox hunting is cruel, we believe it is a very necessary part of country life and sustains a very healthy fox population,” he said.

David Wilkinson, chairman of the Irish Hunting Association, agrees that an Irish ban is unlikely.

“The economic arguments for fox hunting are important for rural Ireland,” he says. As a result, Wilkinson believes fox hunting here isn’t at risk.

A 1998 UCD report, sponsored by Countryside Ireland, concluded that in 1995 mounted hunting contributed the equivalent of €80 million to the economy. With inflation and economic growth, some enthusiasts now put that figure at €100 million.