Hunt dogs ‘savaged fox in our back yard’
Mother of three feared for her children on St Stephen’s Day
GARDAI are investigating the killing of a fox, which was allegedly attacked by hounds in the back garden of a woman’s housing estate home.
Niamh Hodge, from Macroom, Co. Cork, claims a large pack of hunting dogs chased a fox into her back garden and killed it.
Ms Hodge’s home is in the Ard na Gréine housing estate that adjoins a field where a Macroom Foxhounds hunt was taking place that day.
She told the Irish Mail on Sunday of her terror as the hounds swarmed onto her property – while her husband tried to shoo them away from the terrified fox.
‘At 2pm on Stephen’s Day, out of the corner of my eye I saw something and it happened to be a fox. It ran into next door’s garden. We’re backed onto a field so there is fencing at the back. I just assumed it would have hopped over the wall. Then it
‘There must have been 30 dogs. It was a blind panic’
dawned on me that there must be a hunt around. Moments later, a pack of dogs arrived in. There must have been about 30 of them. They were running all over the place, into everybody’s garden,’ she said.
‘It was just a blind panic and it was a good 10 minutes before anyone arrived to call them back. They were wound up – they were on the scent. They had killed a fox.’
Ms Hodge said that had her twoyear-old son Cathal been playing outside, he could have been attacked.
‘This is a family estate. The majority of us have kids. If it had been a fine day, our kids would have been playing on the footpath. There’s a good chance that my son, who is almost three, would have been out in his little car going around the driveway,’ she added.
The mother of three’s account is supported by a neighbour who saw the dogs on the estate and confirmed they were there for 10-15 minutes before being rounded up.
But huntsman John McSweeney, who was leading the hunt in Macroom, told the MoS that his dogs didn’t kill a fox – and claimed that the pictures of a dead fox being circulated by Ms Hodge were fake and had been previously circulated online. ‘That picture has been used before by hunt saboteurs and it’s been taken off the internet. We’ve witnesses that we didn’t kill no fox that day, so if you want to print anything about us, be very careful what you print,’ he said.
However, the MoS verified that the pictures of the dead fox were taken in Ms Hodge’s back garden and had not previously appeared online.
Ms Hodge also provided a receipt from a local vet for the disposal of the fox. When we put this evidence to Mr McSweeney, he texted back: ‘No one has given us any actual evidence of a fox being killed, as alleged.
‘And until such time as we are given evidence, we have no comment to make.’
Gardaí have confirmed that they are investigating an incident that took place in the Ard na Gréine estate, on foot of a complaint.
In July 2016, the Macroom Foxhounds Hunt was ordered to pay €4,000 in compensation to a farmer whose bull was injured after dogs, which strayed from the hunt, caused it to run through a fence.
Despite two witnesses testifying that they saw the dogs startling the bulls, the court was told that Mr Sweeney disputed the claims.