Tony Gregory RIP
Dec | January 5, 2009A little late but I think we should express our condolences on the death Tony Gregory TD who passed away on Friday after a long illness. Gregory was an independent TD for Dublin Central and used that status as an independent deputy to campaign for and get the best deals possible for inner city Dublin. His constituents and Dublin as a whole have lost a great representative.
Added to the death of Seamus Brennan last July it means Dublin has now lost two of its best Dail deputies with no clear date as to when by-elections will be held to replace them.
Tony Gregory was certainly a brave man of the people and I applaud his unceasing opposition to the drugs barons who have fattened on human misery.
But he was also a tireless champion of animal welfare. In 1993, he moved a Dail Private Members Bill to abolish live hare coursing. Despite the numerous pledges of support for a ban that campaigners had received from politicians over the years, the Bill was annihilated. Gregory had hoped that a free vote might have been allowed given the non-political nature of the issue.
But the three largest parties whipped their members into voting down the Bill. I was in the public gallery on the day and I will never forget the scene.
The Bill’s supporters had registered their votes within seconds, but those voting against took several minutes to pass through the little gateway to give the thumbs up to a form of animal-baiting that many of them had publicly denounced. Some of them walked with heads bowed; like a jury about to convict. The Bill was defeated by a massive 104 votes to 16.
But like other “heroic failures†of the past, the Bill did act as a spur to reform and social advancement. Its immediate consequence was the arrival of muzzling on the coursing fields. Though it never succeeded in eliminating the cruelty from the practise, this was a major first step towards abolition.
Secondly, by moving the Bill and taking on both the coursing clubs and their powerful political backers, Tony Gregory created an unprecedented public awareness of what hare coursing was all about. He demolished the misconceptions and sentimental half-truths that its advocates had lovingly wrapped around it in a protective canopy for decades.
Tony Gregory didn’t live to see the humble Irish Hare protected from cruelty. Coursing is still with us.
But on the day an enlightened government finds the courage to ban this medieval chamber of horrors, I reckon somebody “up there†will be smiling…
Thanking you,
John Fitzgerald, Callan, Co. Kilkenny, Phone: 056-7725543
(Author of Bad Hare Days, which contains three chapters devoted to Tony Gregory’s battle to save to save Ireland’s hare population from coursing)
God bless Tony Gregory. There’s a podcast of Senator David Norris interviewing him available from NewsTalk. Thank you Tony Gregory for your service to this state.
Holbrook