05/09/2026
🐾🐾❤️❤️👍👍🐶🐶
🥳🥳 Another greyhound track has fallen silent. Drumbo Park in County Down, Northern Ireland is closed. 🥳🥳
And the reason? According to those close to the track, Drumbo struggled with a shortage of runners and poor attendance. In other words, the business could no longer sustain itself.
That is what happens in the real world.
When a business is failing, when customers stop coming and the money is no longer there, eventually it closes its doors.
Unless, of course, you are a greyhound track in the Republic of Ireland.
Take Youghal Greyhound Stadium.
In 2025, Youghal did not have a single paying customer attend its race meetings. Not one.
Yet the track remains open.
In fact, Youghal had already received almost €763,000 in funding to keep it afloat, and despite attracting no paying customers throughout 2025, plans were announced this year to spend a further €50,000 upgrading the track surface.
Greyhound racing has received ring-fenced public funding from the Irish State since 2001. That funding began at approximately €9 million a year and has been increased incrementally over the years. In 2025, the industry received €19.8 million in State funding. In total, more than €300 million has been allocated to greyhound racing through this ring-fenced funding since it began.
If this were any other failing business, its owners would be accused of reckless financial management. They would be told to cut their losses, restructure or close.
But greyhound racing appears to operate under entirely different rules. The public stops coming. The tracks become financially unsustainable.
The industry fails to generate enough income to support itself.
So instead of allowing the market to decide its future, the Government reaches deeper into the pockets of Irish taxpayers and directs hundreds of millions of euros into an industry that has been publicly funded for more than two decades.
Drumbo Park has closed because the reality could no longer be ignored.
How many more failing greyhound tracks will taxpayers in the Republic be expected to prop up before our Government finally accepts what the public already knows?
Greyhound racing is a dying industry.
And no amount of taxpayer money can keep it alive forever.
(Please see sources in comments)
