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I've always felt that we need to be very open and honest about the history of all dog breeds particularly our heritage breeds. We need to be careful not to present too chocolate box an image of our social history. Some hertiage breeds were developed by the upper classes for their game shoots, some were breeds of the urban poor, some general farm dogs and some were bred especially for purposes we'd now find distasteful if not barbaric.
At least one breed, the Kerry Blue Terrier, has a strongly political element to its history. Politics that some involved in the breed in this country have great difficulty with - unlike breed supporters in the USA or Ireland. The cause of this difficulty is that the Kerry Blue was very much associated with Irish nationalism, - to the point were it could almost be regarded as the mascot of the original IRA.
General Michael Collins of the IRA owned a Kerry and tried to get the breed adopted as the national dog of Ireland. The Irish Woolfhound, once the preserve of the Irish nobility, had been adopted by Irish regiments in the British army and was seen by Collins as a whooly unsuitable as a national breed.
Dogs, however, could act to unite as well as divide. The story of the first show held by the Dublin Irish Blue Terrier Club is, I think ,worthy of a television drama, if not a feature film. It was held outside curfew and attended by wanted IRA men and at least one police officer. The Dublin Club became the precursor of the Irish Kennel Club set up to defy British KC rule over Irish canine matters. The first dog registered with the Irish KC was, of course, a Kerry.
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