Healy-Rae could teach Gormley a thing or two about bleeding liberals

THE animated state of the stag hunting debate is indicative of the deathly state of Irish politics more generally.

If John Gormley is right about one thing, it is that there are far more important issues than stag hunting facing Ireland right now.

So why are the Greens intent in ramming it through, you might ask? In part, the attempt to ban stag hunting combines two of the country’s lamentable foibles: its growing sentimentality towards animals and its culture of empty-headed gesture politics.