Irish Coursing Club (ICC)
The Irish Coursing Club (ICC) has been ordered to pay €640,000 in damages to a private firm and could face further costs after a court case relating to a disputed land deal next to its grounds.
Mr Justice Frank Clarke announced the verdict at the commercial court yesterday and is due to provide a written verdict on the case and a relating issue shortly, as part of this long-standing case taken by the development company Greenband Investments.
This move potentially places a question mark over the financial stability of the Irish Coursing Club, with trustees of the group stating substantial costs arising from this case could have “a major effect on the club“. The €640,000 damages is only a fraction of the original €5.9 million claim made, however a decision on further costs to be awarded will not be made until another hearing planned for March 30th.
The case, which was originally taken against the Irish Coursing Club in June 2008, relates to the coursing organisation’s interest in land along side its Powerstown Park stadium premises at Davis Road, in Clonmel, Co Tipperary. Greenband Investments sued the ICC to compel it to complete the sale of part of the lane way after claiming its €31m retail development which includes a Marks and Spencer store, would be jeopardised if this did not take place.
Greenband Investments also claimed it made a written agreement with the ICC trustees, in March 2008, to buy the lands for a sum of €100,000 and had paid a deposit of €10,000. Greenband Investments claimed the ICC was fully aware, at all times, that the purchase of the lands was part of a larger scheme of development by the private firm.
It is understood that legal costs in this case have yet to be decided.
While I would normally hate to hear about any company or business enterprise or sporting organisation facing a challenge like this, I don’t feel that way about the Irish Coursing Club. Hare coursing is one of the most barbaric forms of organised cruelty to animals ever devised by man for his amusement, as this brief film of Irish coursing shows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D58qbzC-GI4&feature=player_embedded
How can grown men delight in seeing animals suffering for their entertainment? Live hare coursing should have been consigned to the history books long ago. Its cruel and unnecessary and muzzling just means the hare gets hit by the dogs and tossed around and suffers internal injuries.The dogs get injured also in the chase.
I hope Coursing bites the dust as soon as possible and if the various court cases can bankrupt the ICC well and good. The ICC also will have to pay costs for both sides as they lost the case. I know its not over yet as there are more court dates to come.
Coursing’s demise will be no loss to anyone…only to a few die-hards with nothing else to do but gamble and watch animals suffer
There’s something really not RIGHT about people who get a kick out of watching animals getting injured and watching a greyhound terrifying and killing hares. Hares are truly beautiful to watch and neither greyhounds nor hares are on this earth to entertain a few depraved and uncivilised people. For this reason, I very much hope that the ICC goes bankrupt and that this activity is finally ended.
It would be interesting if somone could list ten reasons that makes this sport improving to either the human, the hare or the hounds.
Delighted to hear the Coursing Club has been fined, but not enough. Animal Rights Action Network (ARAN) will continue on fighting to expose animals abuse inside coursing.
Great result for hares and hounds. I hope the ICC’s financial loses will result in the demise of this cruel and barbaric blood sport once and for all!
I think hare coursing is disgusting and sick. I hope in my life time that it is outlawed. The terror and screaming of a hare is something I will always remember with pure horror. How adults and children brought to attend gain anything out of watching another life suffer from fear and exhaustion. How can this be a normal and healthy activity and pastime to par-take in. It is so embarrassing for our country, a country of SAINTS and scholars.
I pray St.Francis will stop this torture of our beautiful mystical, full of myth and legend, animal the Hare.
Can’t say I’m sorry for them either. I was taken to coursing as a child and was horrified by what I saw. The screams of the hare are with me still. I was all for muzzling the greyhounds in 1993 when Tony Gregory brought in his Dail bill trying to ban coursing, but muzzling hasn’t worked, the dogs just throw the hares about or maul them, and hares are so terrified by the whole experience of being captured and manhandled by the coursing club people that they are never the same again.
A hare that is subject to any kind of really traumatic experience doesn’t survive for long afterwards. I’d like to see a mechanical hare replace the live one and then everyone could cheer on the greyhounds.
I know the argument about all the money coursing brings into parts of Tipperary etc but that doesn’t make it right, any more than the profits from drug-dealing can ever justify that activity or the gangland background to it. Surely in 2011 we ought to have left behind something as cruel and disgusting as terrifying little hares in a wired-off field for fun and games?
640K and costs is what they get fined for reneging on a contact. When will the day come that the Irish Coursing Club get fined for torturing hares and dumping dogs? Hare coursing is a poor reflection on society and our laws. Hares and greyhounds are not tools for someone’s pleasure. Pain is very real to these animals. The Irish Cruelty Club should be shut down and hare coursing banned.
The more the ICC is fined the better for hares. Hare coursing is a barbaric activity that reflects very badly on the humans who participate in it. The ability to inflict such terror and violence on a fellow animal is mind boggling. There is a documented link between the infliction of violence to animals and the subsequent infliction of violence to other humans. The fact that we are living in an extremely violent society is telling of how we treat our animals. Moreover, to allow children to participate in watching the torture of an innocent and beautiful creature, who has never inflicted harm on another human, bodes ill for their future. This is part of the desensitisation of humans that has resulted in a living holocaust of unimaginable proportions for billions of animals. If I had the judge’s authority I’d have fined ICC the full €5.9 million.
I cannot understand how anyone can watch an animal suffer in pain. Its just horrible.
Hit where it hurts! hope it ends up much more when further costs are awarded. This disgusting practice should not be allowed to continue.
Bloodsport in any shape or form should be banned. Good to read about the fine, but it never seems to be high enough!
I can’t understand how people can enjoy watching animal abuse. Stop hare coursing! stop greyhound racing! NOW!
Delighted to hear the Irish Coursing Club is being fined €640,000. Not nearly enough in my opinion, I hope it’s brought to it’s knees and has to shut down.
We have to understand that normal people don’t get their kicks from watching animals been tortured and killed. Old coursing diehards need to be pitied rather than scorned. The addiction to animal cruelty/abuse within ‘The Brotherhood’ simply defies logic. The word ‘consanguine’ comes to mind again and again. Perhaps this may be one explanation? Lets hope they have to dig very deep into the pockets to pay the legal legal costs. It may well sound the long-awaited death knell for this barbaric activity.
“If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.” Quote: St.Francis of Assisi.
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Quote: Gandhi,
Good, good and even better. Make it millions
Coursing should be banned – along with every other blood sport – I hope to see an end to it in my lifetime and am glad to hear they have been fined although like others say not enough! How any one can support it is beyond belief.
Good enough for them… coursing is disgusting and barbaric!
I’d like to see the Irish Coursing Club fined for cruelty to animals.
I hope this judgement bankrupts the organisation and puts a stop to this deliberate cruelty.
This is nothing compared to what these people should be fined for the cruelty they have inflicted on countless hares (and other small animals used for blooding) over the years. I celebrate the demise of the ICC.
I abhor the so called sport of coursing!! It is barbaric and I cannot see what entertainment grown men (and some women) get out of it They really must have a cruel streak in them.
I have greyhounds and I know they have been taught to chase rabbits and hares in the past but no longer
A neighbour has a greyhound who has brought both a rabbit and a duck home with him – unharmed!! I hope that when this case is reviewed the Irish Coursing Club are fined more.
Great if some of it could go to a Greyhound Charity!
Unsure what you mean by moderation???
I hope the fines imposed will drive the ICC into oblivion, along with all the depraved individuals who support hare coursing.
I can’t believe hare-coursing is not illegal, it’s as amoral and barbaric as dogfighting or cockfighting and should be abolished.
Where men can gain easy financial pickings, then barbaric behaviour like animal and human cruelty will be practised and become acceptable by humans.
Forced prostitution, the slave trade, sweat shops using children, trafficking in illegal immigrants, dog fighting, cockfighting, stag hunting and hare-coursing all will flourish.
While most are banned in law all are still carried on.
Those whom we elected to legislate, like McGrath and Lowry and Fine Gael, all failed to support the Stag Hunting Bill and must rightfully take all blame. It is likely that EU law is our only hope of making progress in Ireland.
I particularly blame the ‘The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ and believe that they should not receive any private financial donations from the public, until they present published facts and recommendations to the government on the activities involved in this vile sport of hare-coursing.
The sooner the exploition of sentient beings end the better.
Watch TV3 tonight folks – programme on blood sports at 10.00pm. Should be interesting.