Foxes were terrorised by a pack of dogs and at least one was killed during a hunt in County Tipperary.
A report in British hunting magazine Horse and Hound (18 February 2026) outlined the persecution of the foxes during a “long and arduous” Tipperary Foxhounds hunt in January.
After leaving Ballagh, the pack of hounds was brought to an overgrown bank and soon were seen “streaming across the winter pasture in full cry” and “shrieking on the line” after a fox.
The hunt continued across the Multeen River with “some patchy woodland hunting over the next couple of hours”.
In a forestry plantation, the hunters targeted another fox. The hunt went across fields, through a farmyard and “at length they marked their fox to ground on a briary bank atop a hill”
The fate of this fox was not revealed. In hunting terminology, “marked to ground” refers to the point when the pack of hounds chase the fox into an earth or drain. This is typically followed by the arrival of the hunt’s terriermen who cruelly catch the fox using shovels, spades and terriers before the doomed animal is pulled out and brutally killed.
After that, a fox “bolted” and the hunters and hounds were “pounding away again in pursuit, downhill through Delaneys, across a country road, around the headlands of fields of grass”.
The pack of dogs “accounted for their fox” in a wood and the huntsman - who was said to be “obviously pleased with his wonderful pack” - remarked that "the day you don't get the buzz from a good hunt is the day you need to pull the plug".
“Accounting” for a fox is a euphemism for the pack of dogs catching and killing the unfortunate fox.
It was a bad day for horses too in what was described as "savage country". One young horse “didn't quite make the far bank, and slipped back into the brown water with a mighty splash”. Another horse “failed to get over” a ditch and was seen “floundering in the drain”. Next to a tall bank, a mare was “thrashing about in the watery chasm below, while her owner, nursing a broken rib, dragged herself out”. Later, a gaping drain beyond a “bungalow-sized double bank” was “choked with a logjam of cursing fallen riders”.
During the hunting season, the Tipperary Foxhounds terrorise foxes twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Shame on the Irish Government for allowing this bloodsport to continue. The vast majority - in both rural and urban areas - are in favour of a ban. The latest opinion poll - the NSPCA-commissioned Bounce Insights National Survey 2026 - shows that 82% support a ban on fox hunting. Previous RED C and Ireland Thinks polls confirmed overwhelming support for a ban.
DID YOU KNOW? Irish taxpayer-funded Horse Racing Ireland has handed out more than €15 million (€15,585,000) to hunts since 2014 (in the form of point-to-point racing grants), including over €1.78 million in 2025. In that period, Tipperary Foxhounds received €384,750 for their point-to-point meetings, including €34,450 in 2025.
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Micheál Martin TD
Leader, Fianna Fail
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Simon Harris TD
Leader, Fine Gael
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