On the 1st January each year it is tradition on Lough Gill Co. Sligo and some other fisheries for anglers to adventure out and try to catch the first salmon of the year in Ireland. New Year’s Day on the 1st January 1984, I launched my boat at day break. One had to be out
A life changing “Body of water” experience that influenced our family over 40 years ago, was brought about by a sight so startling that it became one of those “never to be forgotten, moment.” We, that is, Mum and Dad, and our four children, aged 11, 9, 7 and 5, were on a tightly budgeted
My granny and grandad lived in an old farmhouse near the Camac river at Bluebell, which was still fields in the 1960s. The house was beside the old, single carriageway Naas Rd and the Camac ran just beyond the end of the garden, behind a row of mature Beech trees. There were cattle in the
It’s the closest to the Cote d’Azur you got in Ireland, 1972. Rush – the strand there – even the word recalled the waves pulled from the shore, stumbling over stony sand. Even the noise of the tides couldn’t drown the noise, though – ‘Achoo!’ she sneezed, for what must have been the hundredth time.
The sea poured sound into my ears from the age of five when we moved to Seapoint but I didn’t like it up close and personal disliked the salt, hated the cold and, when it got up past my shoulders, found it terrifying. I loved the sea when I wasn’t in it. We climbed the
At the water’s edge Grains of wave-washed sand Years of my childhood. Today as a storm force ten wind whipped the normally tranquil harbour into a white fury, I walked the shoreline. As I listened to the gentle scrunch of rough sand under my feet and watched the unleashed waves hurl themselves at the unshaken
I developed an interest in the rowing club as a spectator over the past fifteen years because I live facing the river Liffey. I’ve seen the members practice their skills regularly in the evenings after work, and racing on the weekends. Once a year they hold their own regatta, and they also have a service
Heavy with spawn, she rested below Athy’s Horsebridge. Melodies of a distant shoal drifted by. An old familiar tune, dancing Rudd. Moving upriver, she took advantage of the competing swirls, navigating from reed-bed to rock till she glimpsed the first flickers of fin and dived for cover. She lay perfectly still and peered from the
If the Grand Canal in Dublin could speak (and I’m not convinced that it can’t), then it would have some stories to tell. I don’t know the sad ones. It’s a canal steeped in history, and a history we can only dream of. It’s been splicing Dublin since the 1790s. Ladies in Lyonnais silk, bought
“As children, myself and my younger brother often heard our Father tell stories from his childhood about the river Greese across from his family home on the ‘Blind Lane’ as it is known locally. He told us about how himself and his younger brother Denis would catch trout and how with pollution over the decades
If I close my eyes and concentrate, I’m back there, three years old in a floral dress and green sandals with knee-length white socks. My small hand is clasped in my father’s on a beautiful June morning. Seagulls screech, soar and swoop and the salty pungent aroma of seaweed and salt water’s so strong, it
I suppose it must be the Dodder. Whatever flows into it, it’s the Lakelands, at Terenure – it’s all I’ve known it as. It’s the first place where I can remember nature existing. There is a bridge which seemed sturdy when I was 6, but when I visited it last week, it looked as if
To use this interactive map, click on a county to view the list of stories connected with it.