The Government vote last night finished stag hunting in Ireland

It's all gone Pete Tong for the Ward Union. I imagine they are in shock this morning. Four months ago I requested to record their last drag hunt for RTE, they turned it down. I don't want to quote Pretty Woman here "Big mistake. Huge...", but you guys needed all the help you could have got. It's all the more regrettable because as a horse person and from a farming family many of my sympathies lie with the countryside view. (My mum's family alone have killed more game in Ulster than is produced yearly.) But last Spring, the Ward Union were standing fast.

It's a real pity it didn't happen and I feel genuinely sorry for them this morning. All the hunt staff, kennel men and the countless employees in the area that look after livery horses, ancillary businesses and the deer farm will be out of work fairly soon. An end to deer hunting was inevitably going to come in Ireland, it's just a pity that both sides became so entrenched.


I'm still kind of flabbergasted that they thought they could get this through and they would be back hunting this September. Yes the vote was close but this is finely worked out stuff; and whatever the amazing countryside forces RISE galvanised, it was never going to be good enough for party politics.

What I know so far of what happened last night -
Christy O'Sullivan who abstained in the first vote, voted for the Government in the second, and in the walk-through. Mary Wallace, the Fianna Fáil TD for Meath East, voted with the Government to support the bill. Why make such a steam about it when you vote for it anyway Mary? Yet again, rebel FF TD's hot air could barely get a domestic kettle to even think about boiling.

Mary's statement said "I decided, in the national interest not to be instrumental in the fall of this Government. Despite my strong objections to this Bill, I believe a General Election would be wrong for the country and indeed for my community'

Oh God, Community. Mary if your vote is in the national interest, most of your Meath constituency will be buying a Ryanair ticket to Bydgoszcz this morning. For Gormley and the Programme for Government, starting out with a bill on hunting was asking for trouble. He should have learned from the UK that hunting creates massive political wobbles, and the coalition has just suffered its first as a result. And why the strategy to introduce the bill on hunting first, and then follow it up in the same week with the Dog Breeding Establishments Bill? Good thinking there folks, the dog bill is actually causing more ructions than the stag hunting if that's possible. This week is likely to be a lively one. I bet Gormley is regretting he didn't start out with his promised legislation on the Dublin Mayor. Gosh how easy that looks now in comparison.