A woman in Graiguenamanagh, County Kilkenny shares her home with a collection of cats and dogs.
Biddy Ryan lives in Graiguenamanagh, County Kilkenny with her collection of cats and dogs. Many of her dogs are imported pedigrees for breeding and showing. Others are mongrels. Some of the breeds in Biddy Ryan's collection include Pomeranian and Poodle. She also owns two rare Italian greyhounds. All of the dogs know their names,
I have one called Miss Ryan after myself.
The rarest pets are a Pharaoh Hound called Synge and a Birman cat who is the boss of the house.
They have their own quarters, of course some of them sleep with me naturally.
Biddy Ryan needs a big bed to accommodate the 15 dogs and Siamese cat that join her at bedtime. During the winter evenings she enjoys reading poetry to them,
I read Omar Khayyam which they like very well, and Tennyson, they're very fond of poetry altogether.
Closer to home she might read Irish fairy tales to her pets but draws the line at the writer John B Keane.
Biddy Ryan hesitates to put a price on her entire collection of cats and dogs. Some are very valuable and others are not, but as they are all her pets,
I wouldn’t sell them at all, for any money, no money would buy them.
This episode of 'Hall’s Pictorial Weekly’ was broadcast on 12 May 1973. The reporter is Dick Hogan.
