O’Conall Street

I go on a bit about how little the border matters in Ireland these days and how the commercial and cultural  boundaries between Britain and Ireland are reducing.

Now the dog fighting fraternity are in on the ‘New Ireland’ too. They are, according to an important piece of investigative journalism by the  BBC’s Mandy McCauley on Panorama and Northern Ireland’s Spotlight programmes,  running a vibrant ‘ sport’  with a considerable following. She has uncovered a complex network stretching from the arctic circle to the streets of Britain and Ireland and HQed here in Northern Ireland. Dog fighting was banned in Britain in 1835 and I suspect this has been so in the Republic of Ireland since independence.

I can’t get my head around this macabre spectacle nor can I understand why people would want to own an animal bred to kill. When Dublin city council banned a long list of potentially dangerous dogs from all council property it was dead right in my mind, although this may lead to legal challenges. It’s a pity that the Irish government has not moved to outlaw ‘dangerous dogs’ as the British government did with the Dangerous Dogs Act of 1991. As Ms McCauley has proved the South is the preferred import route for dangerous dogs into the UK and an easy place to host a not so pleasant dog show or two.

A little liverpudlean girl was killed this year by a pit bull and according to the RSPCA/USPCA it is only a matter of time before this happens again, all to satisfy the sick minds of a few sad people with a no moral compass and little respect for life, human or animal.

This story takes a bizarre turn next. One of Ireland’s well known Gaelic footballers, himself an all Ireland medal holder, is according to the BBC centrally involved in the organisation of illegal dog fighting along with an associate who has loyalist connections. Sad or what!

There are no clean hands in the world of dog fighting. The RSPCA is using public relations and public affairs to provoke public debate. It has certainly worked on me. The issues now is whether the British and Irish governments sit down together to tackle the trafficking, whether the Irish government will move to introduce legislation to outlaw these dogs and whether ordinary people everywhere in Britain and Ireland will demand these animals be removed from their communities. Last week a famous American football start, Michael Vick, was convicted and faces jail for his involvement in dog fighting.  Time will tell whether an Irish football star follows him.
 

This entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 6:29 am and is filed under Unfiled. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.