IRISH DOGGIE TALES
A children’s documentary series for RTÉjr Radio, starting Saturday 21st February on the Weekend Club
As part of the new Weekend Club, RTÉjr Radio will broadcast ‘Irish Doggie Tales’, a fun new documentary series highlighting the original working purpose of our native Irish dogs. The series will be broadcast at 10.15am each Saturday morning.
In this documentary, with support from the Irish Kennel Club and the Irish Breeds Society we will listen to dogs at work and talk to the dog owners about their dogs day-to-day working life today and what it used to be like in the past.
Over the six part series we look at the lives of Irish Wolfhounds, Kerry Beagles, Irish Setters, Irish Water Spaniels, Irish Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers, Irish Glen of the Imaals, Kerry Blues and Irish Terriers.
Each dog was bred for a unique purpose such as hunting wolves, fox hunting, retrieving game birds, hunting badger, otter, vermin as well as general farm herding. Irish dogs can be put into three categories hounds, gun dogs and terriers.
Episode one and two review Irish Wolfhounds and Kerry Beagles who can be both categorized as hound dogs. The Irish Wolfhound is the oldest dog on record in Ireland and was popular with the Kings of Ireland for hunting wolves as well as going into battle. The rare Kerry Beagles can only be found in Munster and must not be confused with English hounds. A pack dog, they are the second oldest working dog in Ireland and are still used today for fox hunts.
Episode Three and Four review the gun dogs of Ireland; The Irish Red Setters and The Irish Water Spaniel. These extremely gifted dogs are still working today sniffing out game bird on the bogs and rivers of Ireland. These dogs never kill an animal, only retrieve and must have soft mouths in order not to damage a bird.
Episode Five and Six review the many terriers of Ireland such as The Irish Terrier, The Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier, The Glen of the Imaal Terrier and The Kerry Blue. The terriers were considered the working man’s dog of Ireland. They needed to be small but a good farm worker in penal times because a catholic man could not own a dog over the value of £5. This meant that these dogs were trained to do many tasks such as killing vermin, badgers, otters and general herding etc.
The terriers were also brought on the famine ships to America to kill rats in order to prevent disease spread. Michael Collins was also a Kerry blue terrier fan and his first dog at a dog show in 1920 was called Convict 224 (DeValera’s prison number in Manchester jail)
“Irish Doggie Tales” will air on The Weekend Club with Megan Cassidy starting at 10.15am Saturday 21st February on RTÉjr Radio
Irish Doggie Tales was produced and edited by Caoilín Rafferty and is presented by Ciara CourtneyThe project was supported by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, as part of the Sound and Vision Scheme