Millstreet.ie

I like your site, but not pictures that promote the cruel so-called “sport of hare coursing that most other countries have banned. Millstreet has a lot to offer but please, not this ill-treatment of animsls dressed up as “sport”.

Fair enough that you just wish to inform people, and it’s a brilliant, very professionally run site, but if for example pictures of a hurling or football or rugby match were shown, fouls or other controversial scenes or highlights might not be excluded. My problem with promotion of hare coursing generally, not just in relation to Millstreet I might add, is that only pictures favourable to it are included (such as smiling greyhound owners or trainers, winners, greyhounds wagging their trails etc) but rarely ones that show the hares being tossed about like playthings, or pinned to the ground, or mauled…which happens at ALL coursing meetings. The impression is thus given that the whole activity is benign and harmless. Hare coursing is opposed by a big majority of the Irish people, according to opinion polls, and unlike other, legitimate sports, it depends for its very survival on one-sided censorial coverage. Having said that, I know people who go coursing and I haven’t fallen out with them. I just tell them what I think! Drag coursing, in which a mechanical hare is used, would be a bit hit in Millstreet I believe if given a chance. No animal gets hurt and all the family can get involved.

I don’t think with the greatest respect to everyone that the town park in Millstreet should be used for hare coursing. This can give us a bad name here in Millstreet at a time when tourism is so important. I’m not what you’d call anti-bloodsports when it comes to game shooting (a quick kill is ok in my book) and I’m not against foxhunting, and I eat meat like most people, but hare coursing I’ve never liked. It’s not sport because the hare is a harmless creature that harms no one, put in front of two greyhounds to be frightened out of its wits. I’ve seen hares dying of their injuries AFTER a coursing meeting. It was the saddest sight, they were just hobbling around, dying one by one, but because the meeting was over the general public didn’t see this side of the “sport”. The town park is no place or this terrorising of innocent creatures. The park has so much to offer, but surely not this abomination?

How about using a rc vehicle with a Stuffed hare on it?.It would take very little effort.Just smoothen out a two foot wide track and way she goes.All you need is someone to operate it.It might cost a few euro at the start but well worth it.To keep everyone happy….rc = Remote control.