There’s something elemental about coursing

YOU can show something for what it is, you can show something for what it isn't.

For what it is, well, over the past three days, more than 30,000 people converged on Clonmel for the annual National Coursing Meeting, the All-Ireland finals of coursing.

Young, old, middle-aged, male and female, well-heeled, high-heeled, wellingtoned, woebegone, rural, urban, we were all there. From every corner of Ireland, every character you've ever seen caricatured from Synge to Hollywood musical, there we were, and many more besides, personalities with more theatre than would ever fit inside mere walls.