Letters to the Editor: Poor rewards for winter visiting birds
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What an excellent thought provoking, informative, and well-crafted article by Sean Ronayne on birds migrating to Ireland for the winter months. It explains in detail the migration journey of many of our winter visiting birds.
Anyone that reads it will understand how unhelpful the common practice of heavy-handed yearly autumn hedgerow flailing is to these birds and our native wildlife. All the redwings, fieldfares, and many other species we encounter over the next few cold winter months are dependent on the ripe berries on our hedgerows.
Unfortunately this is what greets them after large hedge cutting machines have butchered pristine hawthorn, blackthorn, and other berry rich bushes throughout the countryside in the weeks prior to their arrival. A lot of this cutting back is totally unnecessary. Be kind to our wonderful hedgerows. Let them grow and provide food and shelter.
I found it rather galling that the Dáil would be debating additional funding to the greyhound industry.
I felt a sense of incredulity to hear Martin Heydon TD, the junior minister in the Department of Agriculture, recently telling the Dáil that the greyhound racing industry is “an integral part of the social fabric of our country”.
I would like to inform the minister that his position is not an integral part of a society that I wish to inhabit.
I have always believed that greyhound racing is morally unjustifiable and it should be banned.
It’s my contention that it’s an insult to every sport in Ireland when one witnesses prodigious sums of being pumped into an industry that benefits monetarily off this disgusting and dreadful barbarity.
I find the very idea of using animals for sport and entertainment to be ethically indefensible and beyond the pale.
I am a proud owner of a number dogs and I am acutely aware of the
capacity they have to experience positive and negative feelings such as pleasure, joy, pain, and distress.
Let’s not forget that many greyhounds suffer injuries while racing.
One is aware of the cruel methods that have been used to dispose of unwanted dogs.
Minister Heydon speaks of the greyhound industry as supporting 4,000 jobs and he went on to say how this industry supports economic activity nationwide as well as maintaining a long-standing tradition.
All those utterances from this minister are, to my mind, vapid and platitudinous.
He can dress this up whatever way he wants, but wanton cruelty against defenceless animals is, in my book, utterly egregious.
How would the minister feel if he as human being had to replicate what a greyhound has to do?
I fully concur with the leader of the Social Democrats, Holly Cairns, when she stated that she fully expects the motion of additional funding for this entity to be passed despite all the glaring unaddressed issues pertaining to this industry.
The late Indian lawyer and political ethicist Mahatma Gandhi once uttered the following words which I find apposite to my above line of reasoning:
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
At the recent Kerry County Council monthly meeting, which was livestreamed for the first time, councillors voted unanimously in calling for the enactment of the Occupied Territories Bill.
Sinn Féin’s Deirdre Ferris, in an emotional speech, said Ireland should be inspired by the Dunnes Stores’ strikers in 1984. Ireland, she said “led that charge and now it’s time for us to lead the charge again”.
Meanwhile, Taoiseach Simon Harris says “we cannot ignore the cries of the children of Gaza any longer” at his meeting with the US Ambassador to Ireland, Claire D Cronin.
One thing is for sure though if the Taoiseach, who has the sole prerogative to decide when to call a general election, does so without enacting the Control of Economic Activities (Occupied Territories) Bill, then he will not be welcome in Kerry.
And neither will he be believed if he says he will enact the bill should Fine Gael be part of the next government.
The time for talking to Israel has long since passed.
I would refer to y our report on the Dick Barrett Commemoration which took place last weekend.
I note that the Tánaiste, Micheál Martin, who spoke at the commemoration stated: “The government of the fledgling Irish State breached the core founding principles of its constitution by executing four anti-Treaty republican leaders.” One of them being Dick Barrett, of course.
With respect to Mr Martin, he is being somewhat circumspect as regards this serious historical atrocity. I can well understand this considering the fact that he is in government with the Fine Gael party.
Dick Barrett was detained on June 30, 1922, after the fighting in the Four Courts. He was detained in Mountjoy Prison for five months without charge or any legal process.
On the evening of December 7, while still in Mountjoy, he was informed that the government had decided to execute him the following day without any trial or the like. On December 8, the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception, he was executed in prison.
Put simply, what happened to Dick Barrett was plain murder and we should call it out for what it was. He was a fine Irishman , a school teacher who loved his family and his country. We mourn his loss.
It is great that he has been honoured in his home place by the Dick
Barrett Commemoration Committee in partnership with Cork County Council and Ballineen and Eniskeane Tidy Towns Association,
For the innocents caught up in the savagery and murder of war, do you care whether the bombs and bullets were made in Moscow or Washington? You just know they kill.
When the animals of Animal Farm looked through the window at the end of the novel, they could not distinguish between the humans and the pigs, they both looked and acted alike.
In the real world I find I can no longer distinguish which is now the greater evil, Russia or the USA.
A survey by the International Booksellers Federation revealed that a whopping 81% of Irish people bought at least one book in the last year.
Paperbacks are the most popular books in Ireland with the top five genres being fiction, lifestyle, memoirs, non-fiction, and education. Book shops have an eclectic supply of books to suit all tastes. What better present can a child receive than an introduction to the joy of reading with the gift of an age-appropriate book?
There is also an excellent nationwide public library service. Library membership, which is free, introduces the recipient to a lifelong love of reading.
Regular reading stirs the imagination, arouses curiosity and inspires creativity. Between the covers of a book, readers of all ages are exposed to adventure, excitement, anticipation, and knowledge. With a book in your hands, you’re in good company.
It’s not widely known that the outrageously funny Groucho Marx, was an inveterate reader. The master of quick wit and caustic quip said: “After a dog, a book is a man’s best friend.” Groucho, who with Chico, Harpo, Gummo, and Zeppo made up the hilarious Marx Brothers, was
already a keen reader when poverty forced him to quit school aged 12. Groucho overcame his lack of formal education by becoming well-read.
Although Groucho famously said “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member”, he regularly borrowed books from his local library, albeit incognito under his real name, Julius Henry Marrix.