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12th Jan 2017

This ‘Humans Of Dublin’ Post Has Everyone Concerned About Rats

Sarah

The well-known lifestyle photography page, Humans of Dublin, has left followers a little bit confused about Spanish culture after its most recent photo interview.

Speaking to HOD founder Peter Varga, the man in the photograph says how he has “always been interested in Spain. I’ve travelled a lot there but it was their culture that got me the most. So much so, that I wrote a book called Spanish Fiestas, which is all about their wild, wonderful and downright weird festivals”.

Downright weird festivals is correct, as he goes on to say that his “personal favourite is the rat throwing festival, still performed today”.

Eh what? The throwing of RATS? This basically sounds like our worst nightmare ever, expect in festival form.

The Batalla De Ratas is an annual festival in Valencia, Spain, where revellers throw frozen rat corpses at each other in honour of St Peter. The practice was banned in 2012 as a breach of Spanish animal welfare laws, but carries on anyway.

Facebook commentators on the HOD photo are naturally a touch perplexed, with some asking for Irish people to please not think of this in association with Spanish culture.

We think we’ll stick to St Patrick’s Day parade ourselves… See the post in full below:

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