The involvement of the Irish Catholic Clergy in the cruel “sport” of hare coursing has long offended animal welfare campaigners, and most Irish citizens. Not only have priests attended these events, they even BLESS them, calling down “divine protection” on the coursing fans and organizers. The shadowy link between clerics who preach Christianity and then lend support to hare coursing features in a new novel I’ve just had published as an ebook. Titled Escape from Grievous Faults, it focuses on a dark chapter of Ireland’s past when children were banished to Gulag style industrial schools for trivial offenses and single mothers were sent in their thousands to punishment centres for “conceiving out of wedlock.” Hare coursing was the “sport” of choice for many of the clerics and members of religious orders who effectively ruled Ireland and held the political establishment in their grip. The picture here shows a priest blessing a coursing venue in County Limerick, Ireland. Unfortunately, while Ireland has moved on in many ways since those awful times, hare coursing remains. I make no apology for devoting several chapters of Part Two (entitled Holy Terror) of the novel to the bizarre fondness of alleged “Men of God” for a cruel spectacle that should have ended with the Dark Ages! For anyone interested, here’s the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Escape-Grievous-Faults-John-Fitzgerald-ebook/dp/B01I8K4ECI