So they're going to spend nearly a million pounds on those two splendid lakes Ennel and Sheelin. Our central lakeland is one of the least-known scenic jewels in Ireland. Apart from Ennel, there is the lake of which Praeger wrote: "The water of Lough Owel is indeed of quite unusual transparency." And he told of an outboard engine sinking in deep water. Days later it was "seen from a boat lying on the bottom in 51 feet of water and duly recovered." One hopes it is still as clear. It is fed by limestone springs. But apart from Ennel and Sheelin, there are so many others. Now who doesn't know Derravaragh, for long the home of the Children of Lir? And there's Glor, the White Lake, Lough Iron and more.
An old friend who has long ago hung up, or given away, his fishing rods, always talked of these sites as places for family outings and picnics. He recalled one such picnic with his wife on a small island in Ennel, sitting on a tiny beach, white from the shells of watersnails, well bleached. A small, straggly little birch plant, washed over by wavelets, lay with its roots exposed. His wife was going through a phase of bonzai cultivation in the Japanese style - and planted it in the greenhouse with the usual tying-down here and bending it there. He forgets the process. Then one year they were away for long periods and the bonzai experiments were largely neglected. Next thing she had a handsome five-stemmed birch plant of about 18 inches. It was planted out and now the five trunks spread over the lawn, fine white bark and all. It's about 40 years old and 40 feet high.
Ennel, he thought, had, and may still have, the finest trout in Ireland. Grey, he said, not overly spotted, and of exquisite contour. Up to three pounds was not unusual. Then pollution came along and, after a time, was rectified or controlled. He remembers evenings around Lilliput as many do.
Sheelin is a more robust place with, it has been said, bad pollution periods. We are into pig country, but the new plans from the fisheries people promises a "mobile emergency response unit" to support local boards in the event of a fish kill. (How to prevent fish kills?) But, for everyone, never mind the anglers, just go and look and marvel at what we have on the doorstep of the capital. Ireland of the Welcomes has had several articles with brilliant pictures. The water paradise isn't only, or mainly, for anglers.