Letters

Letters from Irish Voice readers

Letters

June 26, 2008

No to Lisbon, NYC Dogs

I WAS delighted to see Ireland give a ringing No to the Lisbon Treaty. It remains to be seen if the No will win out; but that voice is one that deserves to be heard.

The Nice Treaty, which the Irish were badgered into approving, has had a uniformly negative result for the man on the street. The Lisbon No is the little guy saying that he, or she, feels that they do indeed deserve a voice in their own destiny, despite the blasts of rhetoric from the transnational industrialists and power-brokers who are the sole gainers from both treaties.

Since I’m on my soapbox — on totally different subject, I am not a fan of the ill-reasoned movement to ban carriage horses from Central Park.

Speaking as one who grew up largely on a farm in Cavan, horses are content and happy to work. There have been no widespread cases of carriage horses showing significant ill treatment, and it seems the primary motivation for this is one tragic road accident combined with misplaced anthropomorphism.

It makes far more sense to ban dogs as pets in New York City, where the poor things’ movements are severely circumscribed to an extent totally out of proportion to their natural habits and habitat.

Anyone care to sign up?

Gregory Grene
New York, New York

Stop Hare Hunting

IN criticizing Irish Environment Minister John Gormley’s recent decision to restrict the hare-hunting season, Fine Gael’s agriculture spokesperson, Michael Creed displayed a lamentable disregard for one of our most vulnerable species.

Creed’s battle cry of “any assault on beagling by some Green metropolitan, latte-drinking elite would not be taken lying down” could not have been more ill-timed.

Concern for the future of this delicate and much loved creature is currently at a peak. Published last month, the “Status of EU Protected Habitats and Species in Ireland” report stresses that the overall conservation status of the Irish hare is “poor” and confirms that “factors likely to reduce hare numbers locally include hunting.”

The National Parks and Wildlife Service is also sounding alarms, warning that “the Irish hare is found in every county but numbers have decreased in recent years.”

While Gormley’s move was welcomed as a step in the right direction, it is clearly not nearly enough. What the hare urgently needs at this pivotal point in its survival struggle is a complete ban on all forms of persecution.

Beagling represents a major threat to the species, with hares being disturbed from their habitats and chased to their doom by packs of dogs.

The Irish Masters of Beagles Association tries to present the blood sport as harmless with a cartoonesque depiction of the end of a hunt as “a pack of exhausted hounds and a small white tail disappearing over a hill.” This, of course, is miles from reality.

“The hounds caught up with the hare and totally demolished it,” is how one distraught eyewitness described hunting’s finale. “All that was left was a tiny piece of fur blowing in the breeze.”

Politicians backing the bullies who find fun in this barbarity should open their ears to the screams of the hares as flesh is ripped from their bones.

They should also remember that a majority of the electorate is crying out for a ban on hunting.

Philip Kiernan
Irish Council Against Blood Sports
Co. Westmeath, Ireland

The Real Heroes

FOR once, I find myself agreeing with Cathal Dervan, specifically his column last week on the poor sporting “heroes,” Tiger Woods and Paul Galvin.

I’m not familiar with Galvin’s poor sportsmanship, only from what I read in the papers, but Woods is a joke on the golf course, as far as sportsmanship goes. One bad swing and the Tiger scowl comes out in full force for the whole world to see. Does he think he should hit a perfect shot every time?

There are so many poor examples in the world who are held up as heroes. These two athletes surely don’t meet the standard of who our children should be looking up to in society.

How dare Galvin take umbrage with a referee in the way that he did? Who does he think he is? As captain of Ireland’s most popular sporting team he should have known better, and all these excuses after the fact don’t mean a thing.

I suggest that acceptable role models for our youth are much closer to home, and don’t have multi-million dollar contracts and endorsement deals that 99.9% of our society will never be able to relate to.

How about teachers, who get paid next to nothing in comparison with all the amazing work they do? How about parents, so many of whom struggle to make ends meet and provide a decent home life for their children?

Tiger may be a master golfer, but he thinks he should win all the time, and that’s not what life is about. Galvin seems to think he has a divine right to conduct himself any way he wishes on the sporting field. Wrong again.

A message to our kids – don’t look up to these self-important athletes for inspiration. Real courage is right at home in front of you, or in your school.

John Broderick
Wilmington, Delaware

Foolish Americans

LETTER writer Michael LeRoy (“Two Nuts in a UFO, June 11-17), he of the Hollywood-ish name, would no doubt like to kick my rear in the same way his beloved U.S. storm troopers carry out such work in places around the world.

No chance. I’m a hairy eggs and bacon man myself with biceps as big as sturdy babies, so watch out, you mad American. There are a lot of you over there, one more stupid than the other. Cheese-eating, surrender-monkey burger bums!

Now, if you guys want to start idiotic wars against civilizations which were sophisticated thousands of years before that Italian fool discovered the land of the native “American,” don’t come whining to me when it all goes wrong and casualties begin to mount up.

Don’t forget to include Iraqi/Vietnamese children among those figures. They are people too.

Within five years of that much lauded American Declaration of Independence, signed by the slave-owning ruling class, more than one million native inhabitants on “your” continent were murdered in the name of white progress — carried out by the dregs and rejects of Europe, I hasten to add.

Michael may delude himself that the U.S. is a generous nation, but the fact is you people will drop bombs on foreigners quicker than food parcels. And like all despotic empires, there is only short a time in history that allows the tyranny to continue, and the U.S. is no different.

The White House criminals who make up the current government will shortly be gone, and I hope that a new dawn will then break for the world. It will be long overdue.

In the meantime, Roy chucklehead, blow it out your ear!

Robert O’Sullivan
Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland

Nasty Vilification

I AM deeply upset and disgusted that the Irish Voice allowed an article of such nonsense, malice and downright nastiness to be published in the “paper” (“Tiger, Galvin Are No Heroes,” June 18-24).

What Cathal Dervan has written about Paul’s occupation and his “analysis” on the game is nothing short of disgraceful. This man hasn’t the first idea about a GAA game, and it goes to show how narrow minded and ridiculous some writers are.

I would suggest you tell your writers to research their articles and subject matter before vilifying an individual the way he has done so in this piece of literary tripe.

Catriona Galvin
Co. Kerry, Ireland

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