Dunmore East Dogs, 1984

In 1984 Dunmore East was a fishing village: tourists in the summer: some smuggling: picturesque and quiet: some might say free.

Certainly the dogs thought so. They got fed every day. They cavorted around the place. The people either indulged them or ignored them.

So a collarless motley collection of the most bizarre shapes, sizes and ‘dog' personalities, from the miniature grey thing resembling a toilet brush, to a huge evil Alsatian owned the village.

Dogs spent long glorious days guarding their pavements, piddling on everyone else's, fighting, fornicating and causing general nuisance.

Mind you! If any person was seen to punish another's dog or heard to castigate the rampant behaviour of a pack of fifteen snarling contenders and a bitch, the gravest offence could be taken. Families had been known to fall out for years because ‘poor little pooch' had been severely booted. Supposedly deservedly.

Occasionally - The main street of the village was likely to be relatively quiet for a while when a bitch came into heat anywhere within a three mile radius.

Otherwise – The daily ritual of Billy the Butchers blue van driving up resignedly between the thatched cottages took its course as the inevitable pack of mange afflicted curs loped along in convoy: flea ridden every one; hanging around with nothing better to do than chase the smell of meat and bark their heads off for the crack.

© Simon O'Dwyer

Summer 1984