Laws to ban stag hunting spark protest

MORE than 200 rural campaigners yesterday voiced their anger over new laws to ban stag hunting, and to defend what they call “traditional rural sports like hunting, coursing, shooting and angling”.

As Taoiseach Brian Cowen visited Roscrea to open a new leisure centre in the town, he was faced down by members of RISE, Rural Ireland Says Enough, the IFA and the Irish Coursing Club.

RISE, formed in January and claiming to represent 300,000 people around the country, maintains Green party policy is causing huge upheaval in rural Ireland.