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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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MONTH: November 2006
Bang the drum slowly for Irish greyhounds
DUBLIN--The Irish Greyhound
Board reportedly used DNA profiling to trace the owner who abandoned a
racing greyhound in Tramore, County Waterford, in April 2006, after cutting
off her ears to remove her tattoos. The Waterford SPCA found the greyhound
roaming at large. The owner was located in Munster. No further information
about the case has been disclosed.
A furor broke meanwhile when John O'Connor,
manager of Custy's Traditional Music Shop in Ennis, County Clare, admitted
selling bodhran drums covered with greyhound skin. "We sell greyhound,"
O'Connor told Mark Tighe of the London Sunday Times, "but the majority
of our bodhrans are sourced locally and made from goat or calf skin. In
every tourist shop you go into, those mass-produced bodhrans would be
from the subcontinent and would generally be greyhound or some other poor-quality
skin."
Responded Niall Walton, managing director
of Walton's Music in Dublin, selling more than 5,000 bodhrans a year,
"I have never seen or heard of any skin other than goat being used."
About 24,000 greyhounds are registered each year in Ireland, home of the bodhran. Most are made these days in Pakistan, which has no western-style greyhound tracks, but has some hare coursing and point-to-point greyhound racing.