I feel strongly about cruelty to animals. I'm not fanatical about it but I believe that deliberately causing animals to suffer for "sport", as in cruelly hunting them for the sake of enjoying the spectacle of suffering and unnecessary death that follows, is totally inexusable.

That's why I really liked a book on that subject I was given as a Christmas present...Bad Hare Days by John Fitzgerald.The author is an animal protection activist in Ireland who has battled for years against the bloodsport known as Hare Coursing, a "sport" in which hares (jack rabbits) are captured in the Irish countryside and used as bait for competing greyhounds.

It's a bit like greyhound track racing...except real live hares are used, and many of these creatures are savaged to death by the dogs, to loud applause from the onlookers.

Fitzgerald, a freelance journalist, gives a graphic and absorbing account of the campaign to outlaw this practise, the ups and downs of tackling some very powerful people in his country who support hare coursing, including leading politicians, members of the Catholic Clergy, high ranking police officers,and senior bank officials.

As with bull fighting in Spain, hare coursing though obviously cruel and barbaric is deemed by a section of the political establishment to constitute a "cultural" activity that must escape the laws governing cruelty to animals.

Bad Hare Days offers a fascinating insight into the psychology of recreational killing, and Fitzgerald deals at length with the impact of campaigning on the campaigners...many of whom suffer nervous breakdowns, physical assaults, workplace bullying, and other torments as a result of the stand they took against the politically well-connected hare coursing organisation. Some were sacked from their jobs for speaking out against hare coursing...and many others were arrested under emergency anti-terrorist legislation when militants sabotaged hare coursing venues and released the captive hares.

I found the book utterly gripping and I recommend it to people who are involved in animal welare campaigns of any kind. It offers useful advice on how to avoid the campaigning pitfalls the author and others experienced in their efforts to protect the gentle but endangered and much abused Irish Hare.