Wearing little more than "bull horns" and holding signs which read, "Pamplona: Bloodbath for Bulls", 29-year-old Jacqueline Joyce from Tourmakeady, County Mayo, joined 75 protesters outside Pamplona's main square today.

At the action – which was organised by PETA and the Spanish animal-protection group AnimaNaturalis – activists poured gallons of "blood" on themselves ahead of the Running of the Bulls festival, during which dozens of bulls are struck and terrorised as they slip and slide down narrow streets on their way to being violently killed in Pamplona's bullring.

"Torturing and killing animals can never be justified as entertainment", says Joyce. "We're calling on Spain to end its widely condemned Running of the Bulls event and the bullfights that follow – and, with them, the horrific suffering and abuse of bulls."

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that "animals are not ours to use for entertainment" – has documented that in a typical bullfight, as many as eight men taunt, beat and stab a single bull with daggers and harpoon-like banderillas until he becomes weakened from blood loss.

Then, the matador stabs the exhausted animal with a sword and an executioner cuts his spinal cord. Many bulls are paralysed but still conscious as they are chained and dragged out of the arena.