A County Laois based priest has defended his involvement in the Irish Coursing Club. Ballyadams parish priest Dan Dunne is currently acting as chairman of the Coursing Development Group Committee and claims that he is doing nothing wrong with his involvement with the coursing group.
Fr Dunne, who was involved with the Irish Coursing clubs stand at this year’s National Ploughing Championships in Athy in County Kildare, has criticised some elements of the anti coursing campaign who circulated an email with his phone number and postal address, urging people to make complaints to the church hierarchy about his involvement in coursing.
Speaking to the Laois Nationalist newspaper Fr Dunne, who is also heavily involved in GAA and greyhound racing in his parish, claimed that he has yet to receive a single complaint about being involved with coursing and that he did not want to give some elements of the anti-coursing lobby a platform by speaking extensively to the media about them.
However spokesperson for the Irish Council Against Blood Sports Aideen Yourell said, “We think it is an absolute scandal that Fr Dunne is lending credibility to a so called sport that involves rounding up thousands of hares and using them as bait in public exhibitions of live cruelty.”
SIC: CIN/IE