Sir, - Being an animal lover in this country is a distressing experience. Talking to friends across the countryside, the same story keeps cropping up. Someone witnesses sustained cruelty to animals, often perpetrated by a farmer - for instance, pregnant cows left in a shed to die because they were "too old" to get pregnant anyway, sheep left in fields where there is no grass and starved lambs lying dead in ditches. The first instinct is to call the gardai. However, even if they are sufficiently interested, anonymity is never guaranteed, and it isn't long before the complainant finds their dogs mysteriously poisoned, or their application to rent a house in the village refused without explanation.
This is no exaggeration. There are a lot of thugs in our countryside who don't mind using intimidation to ensure the silence of the few who care enough about animals to speak up about abuse and neglect. Meanwhile farmers are unquestioningly held up as a type of national hero, struggling to feed the population and look after their animals on poverty wages. It is about time we debunked the myth and started acknowledging the personal and social shame that is systemic cruelty to animals. - Yours, etc.,
Catherine Fraser, Model Farm Road, Cork.
