Angling Notes/Derek Evans: The River Lennon in Co Donegal has, for the second time in three years, laid claim to the first wild salmon of the season in Ireland with a fine spring fish of 8lb on New Year's Day.
Andrew Desmond (14), from Dunfanaghy, Co Donegal, was the lucky angler, and the fish was taken at Watt's Pool on a silver Toby lure at precisely 1.14 p.m.
In the midst of a torrential hailstorm, Andrew showed remarkable skill in landing his first ever salmon - probably the most publicised and expensive fish he is ever likely to catch.
As is customary, the fish was purchased by the Silver Tassie Hotel in Letterkenny for €1,000 and the hotel will donate the money to the local Donegal Hospice. A kind gesture.
Assistant fisheries inspector P. J. Kelly was on hand to verify proper procedures were adhered to including "tagging" the fish as soon as it was caught. The Wild Tagging Scheme is administered by the Central Fisheries Board (CFB) with the principal aim of providing a database of accurate catch statistics and to ensure the species is exploited consistent with their long-term sustainability in fishery districts and rivers.
Commenting on the achievement, John O'Connor, CFB chief executive officer, said: "I am delighted to see a young angler catch his first salmon and hope it will encourage more young people to take an interest in fishing for many years to come."
Meanwhile, more than 220 anglers converged on the Drowes River on opening day. Alas, no fish to report. "With the exception of one fish lost, it was a poor day all round," according to fishery manager Shane Gallagher. It's six days into the season and still the Drowes awaits its first fish. It's a similar story on the River Liffey, with no salmon to report after six days.
Like many others, I was horrified and angered watching those spawning salmon attempting to ascend the fish pass on the River Nore in Kilkenny City last week. The new weir forms part of a €48 million flood-relief drainage scheme.
It was perfectly obvious to the man in the street the weir was built too high and too narrow to enable salmon to pass. Try as they would until totally exhausted and bashed and bruised from the "snips" within the shoot, it was abundantly clear they would not make it to the spawning beds.
Now we're left with an ecological disaster and dead salmon all over the place. Even more disturbing is the fact the river will be further devoid of salmon in three to four years time.
The Nore is already on a list of endangered salmon-bearing rivers, a situation brought about, in the main, by drift-netting at sea. This month a delegation from Stop Salmon Drift Nets Now will meet officials of the Environment Directorate General of the Commission in Brussels to seek action under the Habitats Directive. With all the modern technology and scientific advice available, how could a blunder of such catastrophic proportions occur?
Around the fisheries
Annamoe Trout Fisheries, Co Wicklow: Gusty winds and heavy showers necessitated anglers to change peg positions every 30 minutes to combat the difficult conditions during the annual New Year's Day competition. In all, 10 teams of two landed 38 fish, mainly on cats' whiskers, goldheads and fritz lures. The lake will be closed Monday to Friday for the duration of January. (Tel: 0404-45470.)
Ballyhass Lakes, Co Cork: APGAI-Irl casting instructor Glenda Powell will conduct a one-day "introduction to fly-fishing course" on January 22nd. The fee is €100 per person and includes equipment and lunch. To reserve a place, contact Tom Lofts at 087-2248097.
On Saturday, February 26th, Ireland's four most senior instructors, i.e. Liam Duffy, Robert Gillespie, Peter O'Reilly and Patrick Trotter, will give a day-long master-class in all aspects of fly-fishing. As places for this once-off event are limited, early booking is advised. For reservations, contact 022-27773.
Corkagh Park, Dublin: Plenty of trout caught over the Christmas period and with the inclement weather, hot soups, sandwiches and light snacks on-site are always a welcome boost.
Coarse anglers note: Over 3,000 rudd and carp will be arriving this month to compliment the already excellent fishing available at Corkagh. (Tel: 01-4592622.)
Maynooth Fisheries, Co Kildare: Fast sinking line, short leader and black and green booby proved successful for Colin O'Sullivan who notched up 13 rainbows in one session, while Jonathan Ward landed two of 7lb and 13lb, respectively, on a black fritz lure. Junior Adam Dyas wasted no time in trying out his fly-tying Christmas present and caught three trout on flies of his own making.
On the carp lake, reward was plentiful for those who braved the weather. Colin Flynn landed the first fish of 2005, a magnificent mirror of 21lb, closely followed by John McDonnell with a 14lb common carp. (E-mail: info@maynoothfisheries.com)
angling@irish-times.ie
A Dublin doctor wrote to tell me of a tutor he had in medical school who loved to use obscure, and worse, obsolete words for various ailments, just to confuse his students. One of these was imposthume, an archaic word for an abscess.
I first came across it when reading Charles Lamb. Lamb can be the most tiresome of writers, especially in his Elia period. "Pails of gelid and kettles of the boiling element", for hot and cold water, anticipated a species of sports journalese used in the 1950s and 60s (not in this paper, I might add).
He was at his worst in Amicus Redivivus - "Had he been drowned in Cam there could have been some consonancy in it: but what willows had ye to wave over his moist sepulchre? - or, having no name, beside that unmeaning assumption of eternal novity, did ye think to get one by the noble prize, and henceforth be termed Stream Dyerian? 'And could such specious virtue find a grave / Beneath the imposthumed bubble of a wave?'"
The verse couplet is by the Cavalier poet John Cleveland, whose work was included in that volume of elegies on the drowned Edward King, in which John Milton's great Lycidas first appeared. "Imposthumed bubble" is good, I think; a graphic description of the seething of waves. Shakespeare liked the word; Thersites had in his list of the diseases that afflicted mankind: "the rotten diseases of the couth, the guts griping, catarrhs, loads of gravel I' the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume . . . and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter."
Tetter is common still here in Ireland for a pimple or boil, or for skin eruptions such as eczema. It is from Old English teter, which can be traced back to Sanskrit dadru. Hamlet's father, you'll remember, described his own fatal illness thus: "A most instant tetter bark'd about / Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, / All my smooth body."
Imposthume is rarely if ever used nowadays, and nobody but my correspondent's tetchy old tutor would lament its passing.
It comes from Old French empostume, an altered form of apostume, aposteme, from Late Latin apostema, from a Greek aphistanai, to remove (in this case, pus).
It was first used in Langfranc's Cirurgia in about 1400: he wrote of an "eposteme undire the rote of the ere".
It was first used figuratively with reference to moral corruption by Calfhill, a divine, in 1565, who wrote of "the pestilent imposthumes of our ill desires".
Writing of "Roads, Bridges, and Causeways" in his A Social History of Ancient Ireland (1903), P. W. Joyce notes "Many of the old roads are still traceable: and some are in use at the present day, but so improved to meet modern requirement as to efface all marks of antiquity." Mighty changes have since been wrought.
Our most ancient roads which twist and turn to accommodate every minor obstruction, still betimes follow ancient winding paths.
Others may still in part continue along the five main roads leading to Tara. In order of importance these were Slí Asail, Slí Midluachra,Slí Cualann, Slí Dála and Slí Mor.
"In the Four Masters we find thirty-seven ancient roads mentioned with the general name bealach (ballagh). Nearly all had descriptive epithets, one of which was Bealach Mughna, Mughain's or Mooan's Pass, now Ballaghmoon, near Carlow".
And in no manner connected with any celestial body, Moon here refers to Mughain, who in Irish mythology was a territorial goddess of the south of Ireland.
The Irish word sconsa is defined as "sconce, fence, drain or trench", and this is explained thus: "bíonn sconsa le bóthar, a road has fences, a bealach has not".
"Out on its own like Barry's bread," was once the cant in Tralee. And out on its own was the place-name Slee, Co Fermanagh, the sole surviving town-land that is so-named, listed in the Index - presumably slí, "way".
Ballagh is the name of 27 town-lands, and is the second element of over a hundred others. Apart from the similarity of appearance of the anglicised forms of the names, there is no connection between the place-name Ballagh and the surname Ballagh.
This rare surname is Ballach, meaning "speckled, spotted". "An early native epithet name."