“Impassioned, but controlled, informative, articulate and very rational. ARAN done the animals proud and ‘won’ on logic and the humanity which we all (should!) share. A grand day’s work.” {sic}

It’s often said that if you want to create positive change, you've got to rock-the-boat, and that’s exactly what ARAN does and we do a damn good job. Thanks to our fast and quirky response to Ballymaloe House and Rachel Allen, the animals’ plight has being heard in every corner of the country, a seed for positive change has now being instilled into most people whom will now question their treatment of animals. Read on for the good news or click here for a fifty minute interview on Newstalk radio that lightly sums the current campaign and other issues, up. Ballymaloe House and Rachel Allen hit the headlines in almost every part of the country for all the wrong reasons recently, but why? As many readers will be aware, Rachel Allen posted an image of her on Facebook in the run up to Christmas that features her holding a shotgun standing beside the bodies of dead, tormented birds that lay across the bonnet of her jeep. This prompted a deluge of correspondence from members of the public, her fans, and of course animal lovers across the nation outraged that someone this high-profile would be seen totting a shotgun beside dead birds. While this was brewing, ARAN and others were welcoming a decision by Ballymaloe House in Co. Cork that the establishment was not going to host hunting hounds on New Year’s Day 2011. Sadly, on the Day, thanks to local supporters, Ballymaloe House was documented doing everything they originally planned, the picture included with this posting shows just that. Their statement that followed did not stack up.

Within hours of the news, ARAN began a public campaign to encourage Ballymaloe House to stick to their original promise and respect the local wildlife by not welcoming hunting hounds. This coupled with Rachel Allen’s image, led to media coverage which thrust the issue of blood sports, hunting and animal abuse onto most national and various local media outlets across the country. Kicking off the story was the Irish Independent, followed by the Evening Herald and then an almost full page in the Irish Daily Mail, only to spark interest from national radio stations, such as RTE’s Liveline with Joe Duffy, Newstalk’s ‘The Right Hook,' to Today FM’s The Last Word’ and Cork’s 103FM. While the story was brewing on radio stations, it began hitting online internet websites such as Joe.ie, thejournal.ie, Broadsheet.ie and others. At this stage hunting and internet forums and of course Facebook started lighting up with comments for and against hunting. The following day the story was again mentioned on Today FM, Cork’s 96FM, and an hour live call in on Dublin’s 98FM, plus many more. National and local newspapers started picking up on the story with The Irish Daily Mail covering the story on the front page and almost a full page inside the paper. The Irish Sun covered the story with an image of Allen with the shot birds and quotes from ARAN and Ms. Allen. The Irish Star covered the story with an almost half page, TV3’s Midday, (skip to 07:50) covered the story with an almost twenty minute discussion on Ms. Allen’s story. Cork’s Evening Echo covered the story with a full page, along with coverage from The Irish Examiner, Breakingnews.ie. and Joe.ie. Cork Independent, began covering stories of the statement Rachel Allen issued, and of course a follow up story of ARAN offering to donate €1000 to a children’s charity of Ms. Allen’s choice if she decided to set the New Year off on a compassionate foot and no longer shoot, click here and here for the news links. The Evening Herald covered the story and the fact that Ms. Allen is a brand ambassador for Audi, click here and here for the stories. It appears, according to this link from the Evening Herald, a respected newspaper, that Ms. Allen took part in the shooting on the grounds of Ballymaloe House, which contradicts their statements, again, they were quoted on a link from Joe.ie recently ‘'Secondly, the lands at Ballymaloe House and Ballymaloe Cookery School are and for generations, have been, preserved. This means that no hunting of any kind takes place on the farmlands.’ {sic}. Further press coverage continued with two full pages in The Irish Daily Mirror, Irish Daily Mail, an article in The Irish Independent along with the Evening Herald and others covering further stories and a fifty minute radio debate on Newstalk Saturday morning that brought up the issue of slaughtering animals for food and the current public mindset of our view of animals in society. Rachel Allen finally ended up on RTE television's Brendan O'Connor show to speak about the whole story, it was clear she was completely uncomfortable and annoyed by all the negative publicity surrounding her shooting of birds. The Irish Sun, The Irish Mirror, 4FM, The Dubliner Magazine, and others continued on with follow up stories.

There can be no faulting the fact that the media coverage ARAN continues to garner has sparked national debate about our use and treatment of animals. We know our media coverage is planting seeds, opening up hearts and minds, and as a result, huge numbers of new people are making compassionate and kind choices in their lives, and this is what ARAN is all about.