GARDAÍ ARE investigating the beheading and mutilation of a lamb on a farm in Co Tipperary.
Farmer Kevin Fanning (45) said he was “sickened” by the discovery of the mutilated carcass on his land at Gortataggart outside Thurles. The five-day-old lamb had “its head and tail cut off by a knife and its heart removed”.
Mr Fanning found the lamb’s carcass near his small flock of sheep. He immediately called gardaí to the scene, whom he said were “horrified” by the sight and “couldn’t believe it”.
Mr Fanning said he believed the slaughter may be linked to “worship of the Devil” or “could be the act of a religious cult”, as he had “never seen anything like this during a lifetime in farming”.
He noted that the perpetrator had not taken away the meat and ruled out predators such as a fox or a dog.
He said that “a fox would only take a lamb shortly after being born with a smell of blood off him”, and would either eat the lamb or drag its carcass away. He said marauding dogs would have “torn him asunder”.
Instead, Mr Fanning said, the lamb was taken to be slaughtered beside a ditch where he found “a pool of blood” and its carcass was then returned to the centre of the field.
He called a local butcher to view the carcass, who confirmed that the lamb’s head, tail and heart had been removed using a knife. The body parts have not been found.
Mr Fanning said the incident took place at night last week and was discovered the following morning when he went to tend to the flock.
A spokesman for Thurles gardaí said their investigations were continuing and appealed for anyone with information about the slaughter to come forward.
Conor Dowling, chief inspector of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said the description of the lamb’s death was “very unusual” and, whatever the motivation, was “both illegal and cruel”. It was not possible to say if the act was linked to a religious cult or was just a callous “prank”.
He said there had been an incident in a Wicklow forest “a few years ago”, when the carcass of a deer had been found “laid out on a stone” in a manner to suggest “some type of cult involvement”, but nothing had been proven.
