Strange case of the pigeon post forgery

March 1990

A Wexford pigeon fancier was understandably upset when he received an official-looking letter ordering him to dismantle his pigeon loft.

The letter, purporting to be from Wexford Corporation, said that neighbours had complained about his pigeons being a nuisance, and he would have to get rid of them.

The fancier, who keeps in the region of 30 pigeons, approached some of his nearest neighbours, and asked if they had been the ones to object. They all said they hadn’t and that they had no issue at all with him keeping the birds.

It was only when he later had a closer look at the letter that he realised ti was allegedly ‘signed’ by a former Town Clerk, who rather than being in a position to issue such letters on behalf of Wexford Corporation these days, actually left the town to take up another job more than five years ago.

It seems that somebody, perhaps with nothing better to do, had gone to the bother of forging a Corporation letter, hoping to frighten the recipient into giving up his pigeons.

And if the author hadn’t been so ill-informed and so lacking in attention to detail, the letter might even have succeeded.