Fox-hunts are most destructive to countryside

Landowners and ramblers are arguing again over whose rights should be uppermost.

People walking dogs through fields, or trekking across country to appreciate the scenery, or to keep fit, are deemed a threat to landowners.

Why is it that the worst trespassers in rural Ireland are so often overlooked in this controversy?

I refer to the hundreds of fox-hunts in winter.

If somebody enjoying aerobic exercise, or taking Fido for a walk, can do harm, then how much more menacing to the rights of landowners are horses and hounds encroaching on their property, knocking down fences and stone walls, scattering livestock, and ripping up fields of crops?

It says something about the power of the hunting lobby (which includes prominent legal eagles, bankers, property developers and wealthy socialites) that the mayhem wrought by these relics of a bygone age is airbrushed out of the ‘access to the countryside’ debate.

The law is an ass, according to the old adage.

The fox-hunters turn it into a laughing hyena.

John Fitzgerald

Lower Coyne Street

Callan

Co Kilkenny