In Ireland there’ve been less cases. The testing equipment used in this country is less sophisticated than on the continent but in all likeliness the real reason there’ve been less drug scandals in this country is because most of the trainers are retired or older men who’d grumble at the price of top quality feeds let alone expensive steroids.
The pigeons’ lofts are state of the art with heating, electronic sensors and surround sound stereo systems to keep the birds relaxed before the races, and maybe to set the mood for when they get back. It’s important that their home is a sanctuary because once they’re set free in the air all manner of obstacles and predators are waiting for them. Cats pick them off from the tops of trees, phone lines slice their wings and chests in two and peregrine falcons, the pigeons most lethal enemy, can attack and disseminate a flock in seconds. Some fanciers talk about birds that return from races and never leave the loft again for fear of the falcons.
The scream of an attacking falcon sends such fear through a young pigeon that many prefer to commit suicide than risk an encounter and the cliffs of Dover, the departure point for many cross-channel races, are peppered with the bodies of pigeons that flew headlong into the white walls from fear of being attacked.
Pigeon fanciers are bird lovers first and foremost. They call their pigeons their babies and help feral pigeons that land in their back gardens, but reports of cat trapping and the destruction of falcon’s nests are not unheard of. The ISPCA have searched Paschal’s home and loft before but never found anything to support the accusations made against him. “A lot of stupidness prevails,” he says. “There are rogues going around doing things they shouldn’t be doing.”
Pigeons race from as far away as France but the first race of the season is from Thurles and that’s where we find ourselves early Saturday morning, waiting, with two trucks, seven thousand birds and lots of cups of tea, for a phone call from a man they call the Liberator to tell us “birds away”.
The phone eventually rings, the cups of tea are put to one side, the conveyors man their posts and in the blink of a camera shutter the blue sky turns to feathers and dust. They’re up and away, and after a couple of minutes finding their bearings, they all return in the direction of Dublin. “How do they know which way to go?” I ask. “It’s in the eyesight,” someone says. “No, it’s not, it’s their hearing,” comes another voice. “They follow the road signs just like you and me,” says someone else and everyone laughs. Pigeons’ homing devices are in their heads. They work like solar compasses but different studies have shown that birds familiar with certain routes will follow landmarks such as motorways and streets even turning at junctions on their way home. And that’s where we lose them.
The first group of birds dive off into Tallaght and Ballyfermot then Inchicore, Blanchardstown, Finglas and Ballymun and then the last of the Dublin birds make their way out across the city to Swords and Howth. At twelve-thirty six, Paschal clocks his first bird home. It’s good enough to win second place and a share of the pools. The next day he got a phone call from Carlow asking if he was missing a bluetipped pigeon that had landed exhausted on the doorstep of a local pigeon fancier.
“He was probably caught in an east wind. The bird might have flown halfway across the country and back, they’d just keep flying until they drop,” says Paschal. If pigeons are determined birds, it’s only because they’ve inherited it from their trainers. Pigeon racing is not classified as a sport. The union have appealed countless times for sport status, which would enable them to receive grants like greyhound racing. But in the government’s eyes a sport that doesn’t generate tourism or television revenue is not deserving of financing regardless of its status in Irish urban culture. The sport is dying, there’s no doubt about that, but like those birds who cross the channel with mangled wings, torn stomachs and broken legs, the sport, diminished and on the verge of extinction, is not ready to give up quite yet.
