The ‘All Ireland’ of coursing will be staged at Powerstown Park, Clonmel for three days, Mon 1st, Tues 2nd and Wed 3rd Feb.

The best coursing greyhounds in Ireland (32 counties) will compete for the honour of being crowned winner of the Boylesports.com Irish Derby or the Hotel Minella Irish Oaks. 144 greyhounds in all will compete for prizemoney of €200,000. Each competing greyhound has to qualify to run at the National Meeting by winning a trial stake at a club meeting during the season.

Meanwhile the local Powerstown Park committee have been busy since the Autumn preparing the running grounds and husbanding the hares. The hares would have been trained all of last week and hare schooling trials took place on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.

Of course there is also a huge social side to the event and a recording of the day’s coursing action will be shown in packed bars throughout the town each evening. Fringe events include top class greyhound racing at the Davis Road Greyhound Stadium every night and Poker games in the various hotels.

The festival opens with the Ladies International Open Coursing meeting in Clerihan on Sunday morning at 10am. A National Meeting Preview takes place in Hotel Minella on Sunday night at 9pm where an expert panel will go through the card for the following day.

Coursing at Powerstown Park gets underway on each of the three days at 11.30am.