While awaiting good news from an angler based at the weekend at Currarevagh House, Oughterard, I was reminded that Declan T Quigley had written about the giant silurus glanis mentioned here some time ago under the heading A Real Monster. It is the fish of the rivers of Central and Eastern Europe, which has now moved to some of the more notable rivers of France. Huge it can be, but doesn't deserve the reputation given to it by a French professor of about a century ago, who had it as attacking dogs in the shallows at the riverside and even children and young girls drawing water.
It is not that sort of monster, though in size it would intimidate. One was caught near Avignon a year or so ago, 2.24 metres long and weighing 79.6 kilos. Some fish. Nothing remotely like it on Corrib; but it's always off-puttingly flabby. It's the size of its gaping ugly mouth that gives rise to some of the stories. In fact, it is said to be a frugal eater. Anyway, Declan, a fish scientist, had written to say that a claim was made by the northern naturalist William Thompson in The Natural History of Ireland, 1856 (Vol 4, page 143) that an unusual fish, resembling silurus glanis, was discovered in a tributary of Lough Allen during the late 1830's, measuring 2.5 feet in length and weighing 8 or 9 pounds. Thompson's account is also referred to in two English books on the history of fish in these islands. The species is unlikely to be confused with any others known to occur in Irish waters.
Some experts suspect that the name silurus has been applied, wrongly, to the sturgeon. Declan Quigley dismisses this. No sturgeon has ever been found in Irish rivers, though from time to time they have been captured in inshore marine waters. However, he says, there is a long history of silurus RO]introduction in England in the last century. Not always successful. He asks if any attempts were made to introduce it here. There are no records known.
Mind you, he tells a story of Lough Allen. Not so many years ago, two staff men working on the fish cages near Tarmon reported seeing a large, unknown creature breaking the surface. Enough to scare the fainthearted off that lovely lake. Our own Lough Ness monster?