Tommy Gavin | Magazine Editor
It is nine thirty AM in Mallow, Cork, and a Grondelaer pigeon with powerful yellow eyes and a brilliant green nape with trailing shades of violet, is smoothly pulling and dipping his puissant wings through the cold morning air, generating lift and thrust. Bound for Dublin, the journey will take between two and four hours, depending on the weather, and it is not by chance that he takes it, nor is he alone. Approximately seven thousand nine-hundred and ninety nine other pigeons will be making a similar trip at potential speeds of up to 100MPH, all in competition with each other, having been bred specifically for this very purpose. They are racing back to their respective lofts, where their keepers are eagerly awaiting their return, so that they can calculate who was fastest in their homecoming and claim the coveted victory. Twenty to thirty percent of the birds may not even make it back, and for those who do, it will be extremely close. Since they are racing to get home, and their homes are different distances from the point of release, the winner is determined by their velocity; whoever arrived home the fastest relative to the other competitors. As with the Olympics, the standard of excellence is parried for and measured by the decimal point.
Contemporary pigeon racing began in Belgium in the 1800’s, and was an unofficial sport in the 1900 Olympic games in Paris, with seven pigeon racing events contested in the schedule. Before this, the use of carrier pigeons was a hugely important pre-electrical method of passing information across great distances. The Reuters news agency began with carrier pigeons, but the practice was most likely pioneered by the ancient Persians over 2500 years ago. By the 1870’s there were over ten thousand lofts in Belgium alone, and the sport was spreading across England and France. In Ireland, clubs operate under federations, which operate under the Irish Homing Union, which has regulated and promoted the sport in Ireland since 1895.
The Sarsfield Racing Pigeon Club on Lally Road in Ballyfermot is one of the biggest clubs in its federation, with 55 active members. There is a pool table, several televisions, a bar, and ample seating with lots of space. It had the intimate feeling of a local about it, because it was immediately obvious how comfortable its members were while there. I was there on a Friday, the evening before a race. The pigeons would be flying from Mallow, and all the birds would have to be tagged and registered, before being taken away to the trucks owned by the federation, to bring them across the country to the point of release in the morning. Up until a couple of years ago, the way to register a pigeon for a race would be to fix a band onto one of its legs, which would be retrieved when the pigeon returned, and slipped into a tamper-proof box, which would record the time and pigeon number. Now however, it’s done with GPS, which makes things much easier, and also fairer. Before now, if your pigeon decided to do a few circles of the loft before swooping in, precious seconds could be lost, which could mean all the difference in a race judged on decimal points.
I arrived just as things were getting started. As people began arriving with their pigeons, each of which needed to be adorned with a band containing a chip to be scanned by a GPS reader, a palpably giddy atmosphere of urgency developed, and there was a flurry of movement back and forth as transport crates of pigeons began to pile up in the middle of the room. There was work to be done, but there was also common purpose. Everyone knew why they were there, and there was an excited efficiency about it all. The only lull in activity occurred when the match between Ireland and Kazakhstan in a World Cup qualifier, which had been on in the background, began to heat up, distracting the attention of almost everybody present and bringing pigeon related activities to an abrupt halt. Eventually though, someone shouted “ah here, will somebody mark a pigeon?” and the business of the day resumed.
Most of the members would have started keeping pigeons when they were quite young. That was certainly the case with the club’s secretary Thomas Daniels. He was eight when he first developed an interest, which emerged independently of his family, unlike other members who might have started through their father or older brother.
“I wouldn’t be into any kind of motor sport, I couldn’t see the appeal of it, but I can understand any sport being appealing because I’m in this sport. I can understand people looking at me and saying why would you be looking at pigeons or racing pigeons? But it’s very similar to horseracing. The guys at the top would be putting in every bit as much work in terms of man hours”.
It is true as well, keeping pigeons takes a hell of a lot of work. Between April and September is racing season, which requires a lot of oversight to make sure that your birds are fit, healthy, and well nourished.
“How many hours? You wouldn’t want to admit it on the record”. After racing season, there is the breeding season where preferred lines of pigeons will be crossed to spawn the next generation of racers, and new chicks have to be looked after. Then comes moulting season, which requires a different kind of care and diet. Why then are people willing to devote such time and effort to keeping and racing pigeons?
When put in those terms it seems almost absurd. Keeping pigeons to race pigeons, to breed pigeons, to keep pigeons, to race pigeons. Everyone I talked to used the word fanatic or fanaticism at least once to describe either pigeon racing or other pigeon racers. Thomas said that the appeal is “indescribable”. There is no attempt to try and convince other people of the joys and miseries of pigeon racing, because it would be pointless. Either you get it or you don’t. I was welcomed into the fold with open arms for expressing an interest, but they don’t care if other people don’t get it.
In that respect, I don’t find it absurd at all. Pigeon racing is its own deep and separate subculture. It’s like live action role playing, where people meet up in a field and go to war with foam swords over imaginary territory. There are clearly defined rules and rivalries, but if the comparison with LARP’ing makes it sound like escapism, then that just depends on your terms of reference. Escapism implies that you are retreating from the real world, but the pigeons are real. The races are real. The care and the breeding is real. Either your pigeons are the best, or they aren’t. Either you can stand behind your own skill and talent as a trainer and racer, or you can’t. If you’re serious, then you’ll do anything to be able to say that you can.
One of the main ways the sport has changed since the Sarsfield club was set up, is that practice of the sport has became a lot more serious in its approach. Where birds would be fed peas and beans back in the sixties and seventies, now there are different kinds of feed based on what kind of vitamins and minerals the pigeons may need more depending on what time of year it is. Around fifteen years ago also, racers in Ireland caught on to a practice that had already taken Belgium, called widowing, where the racing pigeon is allowed to share a grated wall with it’s mate, but not a loft. The idea being that once taken away to race then, the bird will be far more motivated to fly back to its mate, giving the potential for a sappy love metaphor, which I will leave on the table.
“it seems almost absurd. Keeping pigeons to race pigeons, to breed pigeons, to keep pigeons, to race pigeons”
There is a perception about pigeon racing that it is a cloth-cap pursuit, and to a large extent it’s true. However, it is such an insular subculture that it doesn’t matter. The pigeon racers of the world have included Mike Tyson, Martin ‘The General’ Cahill, Pablo Picasso, Nikolai Tesla and Queen Elizabeth II. It literally is like another world, one that transcends class. The only thing that matters in this world is your mettle as a racer and as a trainer, and your take on certain aspects of the sport. Padner Byrne, veteran Sarsfield RPC member, and generally recognised as one of the top pigeon racers in the country, told me that “racing is silver, breeding is gold. You need to be a great breeder to be a great racer”. Thomas totally disagrees, and is of the opinion that breeding is mostly about luck. It is the source of some of the fiercest debates in the club, and indeed the world of pigeon racing at large.
What surprised me most though was the sense of machismo associated with pigeon racing. Most don’t keep them as pets, you’ll generally lose about 20 to 30 percent of your pigeons over a year from racing. You aren’t keeping pets, you’re training athletes. There are some who might consider the practice to be somewhat cruel, but it’s hardly crueller than horseracing or greyhound racing. A lot of care and attention goes into looking after your pigeons, you want them to be at their best.
Its 7PM, the night before the race. There are two trucks parked in Walkinstown, belonging to the Irish South Road federation, and they will be taking the pigeons from 30 clubs different clubs to Mallow to compete in the weekly race. People from different clubs arrive, waiting for their turn to get their birds on the truck. Once they’re on, a sense of nervous anticipation sets in. The birds will be released at half nine the next morning, and it’ll all be down to the stamina and determination of a Grondelaer pigeon, with powerful yellow eyes and a brilliant green nape with trailing shades of violet.
