Animal Cruelty in Carlow

V480

Hello,

I lived in Carlow for a few years, only moved away last September. One thing about Carlow that always bugged me was the level of animal cruelty that was reported in the local papers and frequently openly visible in the town.

Barely a month used to go by without some horrendous story of dying horses dumped in fields/rivers, domestic pets poisoned, ect. I never actually witnessed much until my last year in Carlow when I moved into a large housing estate near the Tullow Road that has a fairly bad reputation, though I didn't know this when i moved in.

Every night I would be kept awake by the sound of dogs screaming and yelping until the early hours.From my bedroom window I could see dogs tied up in at least half of the back gardens of the houses surrounding mine. Most of these would be greyhounds or pitbulls and they were left there all day and night from what I could tell.

Normally I wouldn't like to go poking my nose about but I decided to contact the local ISPCA, only to find that there was no ISPCA in Carlow! I instead had to ring the Kilkenny branch who told me they would send a local inspector to have a look. I do not know if they ever did but the dogs were still tied up and crying every night when I left. I considered contacting the Gardai but was told by a local not to bother, they wouldn't be interested.

Anyway this is just one example, I saw or heard about countless others. I'm not saying this problem is exclusive to Carlow but it seemed as though nobody particularly cared. Does anybody know if the situation has improved at all or can tell me why it is so bad in Carlow?

Irish Guitarist

I used to visit the swans at the river and bring them some bread and lettuce. Every day during the summer there would be teenagers hanging around harassing the swans. They would stand around putting their feet in the swans mouths and throw things at them. I once saw a bunch of kids pick up a discarded pallet and throw it into the river, three swans narrowly avoided being hit and swam away just in the nick of time.

I did try to contact the ISPCA on more than one occasion and no one would answer the phone. It took me a while to realise the Carlow branch is defunct (it would be helpful if they would at least tell people about this). One day there was a swan who had a fishing line hanging out of his bill and it was wrapped all around his neck and was actually starting to strangle him. I told the park warden and he started laughing. I then tried the ISPCA and ended up having to phone the Dublin branch and couldn't even get through. They phoned me back the next day but they couldn't tell me if the swan had been saved or not.

The Gardai are pretty uninterested in animal cruelty. They just offer to give you the number of the ISPCA which is useless. I don't know if Carlow is worse than other counties as regards animal cruelty. I think it's just that maybe the Carlow authorities are less willing to do anything about it.

I haven't witnessed much cruelty to dogs as I don't live near anyone with pets but it wouldn't surprise me after witnessing the way people abuse animals in the wild.

mirror mirror

a couple of years ago i was working on the renovation and refurb of a certain place on the athy road out from carlow. the state of the horses and dogs there was a disgrace .the council was rung up and was told of condition of animals there ,some animal welfare fella came out and was threatened -fcu? off or else..we couldnt believe it..anyway not too long ago on local paper these same people were complaining about having nowhere to keep their animals. seemly they thought that the council should be providing them with land to keep their animals...they were not fit to raise children never mind take care of animals..p.s while we were working there we used to leave water in buckets for horses and dogs, even brought in hay and nuts .couldnt bare to see animals treated like that