To most people who see it at all, the kingfisher is just a flash of blue/green and gone instantly around the bend of the river. Seen up close, it is a marvel to be cherished. It has survived much. A letter to The Field of 1864 goes: "No less than 30 of these birds having been killed and supplied to a fashionable millinery and hat-makers (as I was credibly informed by the proprietress), in a very short space of time for the purpose of embellishing ladies hats. . ." The writer calls for protests against "this attempt at annihilation, as the kingfisher is at present scarce enough".
It has survived, too, the preservation of trout on English rivers, and maybe here, too. On the river Test in southern England kingfishers were regarded as vermin by the famous water-keeper William Lunn. You could not have kingfishers and trout, he believed. The birds live on small fish. One year, Lunn put 7,000 trout fry into a nursery pond, covered with fine-mesh wire. Soon, he thought, they seemed to be going down in number. One morning very early, he discovered under the wire, on a rail that crossed the pond, 16 kingfishers, having wriggled through a small hole they may have made for themselves. They had taken, he estimated, 3,000 of his little fish.
On one small river in the eastern part of this country, the pairs tend to go down to the estuary in winter, where it is milder. They have been seen, singly, a couple of times this summer. There is still a kingfisher post, specially put there for them in the pool outside the livingroom window, where also is a trailing branch from which they can dive after their prey. Now the river is so low that the pool is mostly bare stones. But they still fly, singly, to and from their nest upstream. Cheers for the recent heavy downpours.
Christopher Moriarty in his splendid book Down the Dodder (Greyhound Press, 1991 and 1998), mentions them as being well-known especially in the stretch from Rathfarnham downstream. "They. . .continue to be as plentiful in the valley as they were when I first saw them 50 years ago." If you are a south Dubliner, you may see the odd one as you enjoy your lunch at a window seat at The Dropping Well on the Milltown Road or from a window seat at Ashton's at Clonskeagh.
Your grandparents might have had a glass-fronted case with stuffed birds - a kingfisher or two, snipe or curlew and even a red squirrel, on their landing. Very fashionable.