First Clonmel Country Festival proves fun day for all the family

The fare included clay pigeon shooting, terrier racing and a "medieval battle". Chris Dooley sampled the country at play.

The sun came out, thousands turned up and the anti-blood sports crowd was nowhere to be seen. The first Clonmel Country Festival, which is to be an annual event, was an unqualified success. Most of the 12,000-plus people who attended the two-day event at Powerstown Park appeared to be field sport enthusiasts, members of the so-called "huntin', shootin', fishin' brigade".

But the festival, organised by Countryside Alliance Ireland (CAI) to showcase a variety of activities from falconry to lurcher racing, attracted a good number of curious onlookers as well, many of them young families on an enjoyable day out.

The decision by South East Tourism to provide funding for the event had been criticised by the Irish Council Against Blood Sports, given CAI's support for controversial activities like fox-hunting and hare-coursing. Instead of turning up to protest, however, anti-field sport activists tried a novel tactic to spoil the event. They stayed at home and prayed for rain. And wind.

After a fine opening day on Saturday, which attracted more than 5,000 people, their prayers were answered. The rain and wind arrived with such ferocity that a trade stand was blown away overnight.

A steady downpour yesterday morning then threatened to turn the remainder of the festival into a washout. But the organisers were praying too because, just in time to save the day, the clouds parted and a strip of blue sky appeared.

"It was just at that time of the day when people are deciding what to do with their Sunday," mused the CAI chief executive, Ronan Gorman. "That time when a lot of people have come home from Mass, had the fry-up and are looking out the window to see what the weather is like. The rain stopped just about then, so we were lucky."

In any event, he said, the show would have gone on. And it was quite a show. From clay pigeon shooting to terrier racing to a "medieval battle", which bore a striking resemblance to a Clare-Kilkenny hurling match, there was entertainment for everyone. The lurcher races were another significant attraction. A lurcher, explained Con Horrigan from Doon, Co Limerick, is more-or-less a cross between a greyhound and a collie.

Greyhounds are fast but not very bright, while collies make up for their lack of speed with a little bit of intelligence. A lurcher, which is used for hunting foxes and rabbits, is designed to combine the strengths of the two.

Whether this cross-fertilisation ever produces an animal with the brains of a greyhound and the speed of a collie The Irish Times is unsure, but all of those present yesterday appeared to have the correct attributes. Horrigan says he is involved "in all country sports" and, like many who spoke to The Irish Times yesterday, he believes anti-blood sport activists either fail to see the whole picture or refuse to give credit to hunters and anglers for the work they do in conserving the environment.

He points to a range of measures taken by field sports activists, such as the creation of ponds to replace disappearing wetlands, work to preserve habitats for endangered species such as the red grouse and corncrake and salmon conservation work.

Populations of some animals, such as mink, have reached epidemic levels, he says. "It's all about trying to keep a balance. We're not trying to wipe out anything."

Gorman acknowledges the charge is frequently levelled at field sports activists that they only wish to preserve certain species so that they can shoot them. But there is nothing wrong, he argues, in people being motivated by a vested interest if the result is to the common good.

Besides, there was evidence yesterday that gun clubs' interest in conservation goes beyond birds and animals they can shoot. The remarkable story of the Irish Grey Partridge Conservation Project, which had a stand at the event, is testament to that. The species was almost wiped out by changes in farming practices over the past 50 years and there is now just one grey partridge population in the country, at Boora in Co Offaly. By the end of the 1990s, there were just 22 grey partridges left - last year that had risen to 93 as a result of the project.

While it is funded by the State and other sponsors, Kieran Buckley, the project conservation officer, says gun clubs have now started their own conservation project for the species, despite the fact that the grey partridge is not a bird they would shoot, regardless of its population.

Back at the Countryside Alliance stall, Ronan Gorman is signing up a steady stream of new members. More than 200, he says, joined the organisation, which is already 15,000-strong, at the weekend.

Everyone is entitled to their point of view about field sports, he says, but the reality is that "the vast majority of Irish people either participate in or support field sports and they are entitled to have a day out like this".

No-one in Powerstown Park yesterday was inclined to disagree.