There are calls for Kerry County Council to show it fully supports the Puck Fair festival.
Independent councillor Johnny Healy-Rae hit out at criticism the event drew this year, when he tabled a motion on the issue at the monthly meeting of Kerry County Council.
He called for the council to fully support the festival along with the raising of the goat, which he says has been done for hundreds of years without incident.
Cllr Johnny Healy-Rae says the festival, which took place in August, drew a lot of “abuse and slack” from people around the country, despite it running for hundreds of years without issue.
In August, the goat was removed from its stand in the town, after a vet ruled the temperatures were too high for him to stay on it.
Once the festival began, there’d been calls for the goat to be permanently left down and for the tradition of having him on the stand to be done away with.
Cllr Johnny Healy-Rae says “tree-hugging” people don’t respect the tradition of the festival, adding they don’t care about the goat for the 51 other weeks of the year; he says if it was snowing these people wouldn’t bring the goat a bale of hay or oats.
He says the organising committee do everything to protect the goat, adding the animal is always looked after very well.
The Independent councillor says the message should go out that Kerry County Council fully supports the festival.
