The hunt is on for the Lough Ree monster

An international exploration team is planning a major expedition to Ireland this summer in search of the Lough Ree monster.

The group, the Global Underwater Search Team, has already taken part in searches for the Loch Ness monster and intends searching the Lough Ree lake bed for evidence of a large serpent-like creature which has been the subject of sightings for hundreds of years.

Witnesses claim the Lough Ree monster is eel-shaped, with its body looping out of the water when it swims, and is at least six feet long with a relatively small 18-inch head.

Possibly the best-documented claim of a sighting was made in comparatively recent times, in 1960, by three Catholic priests. According to contemporary accounts, Fathers Richard Quigly, Matthew Burke and Daniel Murray were fishing on Lough Ree when one of them spotted a large black animal swimming up the lough. The creature rose and fell beneath the surface, forming a loop as it travelled. The priests estimated that it was about six feet in length, and while it may not have been of the monster proportions of earlier sightings, that it was seen by what the local community asserted were credible witnesses prompted more people to come forward with similar sightings.

The sighting pre-dated a wave of interest in the supposed monster of Loch Ness in Scotland which took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Sightings of monsters in Lough Ree date from St Mochua of Balla's reference to a stag which was pursued to an island in the lough, but was safe there as none of the hunters was keen to be devoured by a fierce monster said to live in the lake.

The Global Underwater Search Team, led by Swedish journalist Jan Sundberg, has previously mounted expeditions in Sweden, Norway and Scotland. The team intends to make an initial expedition in June of this year to assess the lake but then hopes to move ahead with plans for the expedition proper. Jan told The Irish Times last week they are unlikely to be daunted by the size of the Republic's largest lake, often described as an inland sea.

"The lake in Norway which we have searched for three years is 471 feet deep and Loch Ness is 690 feet, so a mere 30 metres is welcomed" said Jan.

By coincidence, Jan's first search for unknown animals in freshwater lakes was actually a lake in Ireland, Sraheens Lough on Achill in Co Mayo. Jan was there in 1975 and started expeditions in 1997, when the Global Underwater Search Team was founded. Since then the team has undertaken 15 expeditions around the world.

The team's approach of lowering listening devices into the water of Loch Ness won it critical acclaim from the scientific community. The team was enthusiastic about one special sequence, which it says sounded precisely like large bodies propelled by large flippers, moving through the water.

Analysis would suggest the movements resembled a plesiosaur - a legendary aquatic creature about which there is little hard evidence but repeated claims of sightings from around the world.

A marine reptile, the plesiosaur lived in the sea, not in freshwater lakes, but fossil from plesiosaurs have been found in Scotland, insists the group.

A number of books have been written which feature the Lough Ree Monster and a number of Web pages are devoted to it. Among the books are Lake Monsters of Ireland (1987) and In the Domain of Lake Monsters (1996), both by John Kirk and published by Orbis Books.

Web pages include http://www.ultranet.ca/bcscc/irish.htm and http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/boauk/sighting.html as well as http:// www.cling.gu.se/damien/Athlone-Glasson.html

The Global Underwater Search Team website is at www.gust.st