Minister Gilmore told us all recently that Ireland has the largest stock of Wild Atlantic Salmon in Europe. This might not be so, had we not got from Germany, in the early part of the century, a deal of assistance in restocking. Now we are to some extent, repaying the debt of gratitude by helping them restock the Rhine, the Weser and the Elbe. Presumably the ova, for that is what we sent, go to tributaries of those rivers. For no big river in Europe today can, surely be fit for delicate young salmonids. Anyway, from Burrishoole, the splendid Salmon Research Agency in Mayo, from Delphi, Costello and from Shannon stocks, according to the speech of the Minister bidding farewell to the ova at Dublin Airport last week, goes the Irish contribution to Germany's success in reviving the king of all fish.
Our Inland Fisheries people, the Central and Regional Boards, Ken Whelan and his collaborators in Burrishoole and many independent operators like Peter Mantle in Delphi, help to keep this small State to the front in such matters. Heroes, relatively unsung.
Anyway, how could salmonova, fingerlings or any other degree of fish survive in the Rhine, of today for example? But, with nurturing in tributaries, you hope they will make it. For the Rhine itself, most big rivers of this modem world, must be polluted almost beyond control. And, if we believe the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, it wasn't up to much in 1799 when he wrote
Ye nymphs that reign over sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known
Doth wash the city of Cologne,
But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?
What had Cologne done to the poet? Of course, he was well known to indulge in certain stuff which is today illegal and which often makes headlines in the papers. Certainly, two centuries later, Cologne is handsome, and the Rhine no worse than many other big rivers of Europe. Better, indeed, than many in the eastern parts of the continent.
But back to the salmon. This restocking has been going on for some years, and Ken Whelan, on Tuesday, totting up the dates on his fingers, said, maybe crossing them, that, yes, with huge luck the first Hiberno German salmon of the present series of experiments, might just be pushing its way up the Rhine, back up the Rhine, that is, from the Atlantic, in 1996. That will be the day.