I had a second “launch” of Time to Stop Running on Sunday. And what more apt venue than outside Powerstown Park racecourse in County Tipperary, where the annual “festival” of live hare coursing was taking place?

I have been protesting at this shameful event, a public exhibition of cruelty to animals, for decades. While many countries have outlawed hare coursing, its backers here in Ireland have powerful political friends.

So, despite the opposition of a big majority of the population to coursing, the gentle Irish Hare continues to “perform” for human amusement.

In Time to Stop Running, I try to highlight the hare’s plight via an adventure story. Tipsy the Hare is the novel’s hero, but heroic also is Annemarie Cristobel, who takes up the cause of Ireland’s persecuted hares after she witnesses a mind-shattering incident while out walking.

Aside from hares, other animals feature, including our friends the badger and the fox, who have their own problems with supposedly superior humans, and there’s a deeply corrupt politician who will vote anyway the hare coursing men with the bulky bags of cash want him to.

This character represents a very real political type, and I only wish he was entirely a figure of fiction and fantasy.

I’ve got a great reaction to the novel since it was published before Christmas. I’m especially glad that it’s now available in some libraries.

I hope it will advance the cause of the Irish Hare and help to break the vice-like grip that the pro-coursing lobby has on our politicians.

Political cowardice and corruption are all that stand between this horrendous blood sport and its long- awaited abolition.

Further info on Time to Stop Running at this link:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Stop-Running-John-Fitzgerald-ebook/dp/B07KK1F53Z/