Hello all,
Winter begins for us November 1st, All Saints Day. The
hills and bog have turned a red brown now, but the Bens still throw back
the light from their bare rock. There are only a few visitors in town.
Most people have more time to see friends and talk, and there are table
quizzes in the pubs. The Irish Countrywomen’s Association has resumed meetings,
and your mother is managing the craft nights each Wednesday at the town
hall, where many of the women are making Christmas gifts and decorations.
The adult education classes have started again at the old Boys School --
Debbie Watkins is teaching a pottery course this year.
The fishing season is over now, for four months. The Clifden
Trout Anglers had their last regular competition in September. Danny Vaughan
did well on the day, and won the cup as the best fly fisherman for the
year. A new cup was established in memory of Talbot Farrell, who died in
a boating accident late last summer. It was won by Jimmy Conneely; Talbot’s
family came to the weigh-in to make the presentation. Later I was looking
at a photograph I have, taken about ten years ago I think, of Talbot and
Jimmy and some others after a competition, Talbot in the centre, holding
the cup he himself had won that day.
We had an informal competition a couple weeks ago, for
the end of the season. We went out to some lakes near Ballyconneely, Lough
Anaserd and Truska. It was warm and bright with a northeast wind -- no
good for Anaserd, which is where I was, and where no fish at all were taken.
I could see it wasn’t going to be good there, but I stayed because I wanted
to wade out along that chain of small islands that runs out from the eastern
shore of the lake, and of course have a quiet tea there alone. Well, I
had my reward, because as I was casting from the shore of an island something
appeared in the water about 20 feet in front of me -- the forehead, eyes
and whiskery nose of an otter. We regarded each other’s manner of fishing
with frank and mutual curiosity for a few moments, then he courteously
dipped his head and vanished.
Afterwards we all met at Keogh’s and were welcomed with
soup and sandwiches. A number of good fish had been taken on Truska, with
Jackie Coyne, the All Ireland fly fisherman from Renvyle side, having the
biggest bag.
Now I’ll tell you something just the way I heard it. We
had finished our meal and I was having a pint with Flann Egan and Danny
Vaughan, and they were telling me about the fishing on Truska. Danny mentioned
that a trout had been found on the shore there. Odd, but not remarkable,
you’d say. But a little while later Danny said that a children’s story
book had been found alongside the trout. My perceptive powers at that point
had been well strengthened by a third pint, and it came to me that there
were only two possible explanations.
For the first possibility, I’d ask you to look at Yeats’s
poem, "The Song of Wandering Aengus" --here your man says he
"caught a little silver trout" but when he got home found that
"it had become a glimmering girl." Now it seems plain enough
that if a trout can become a girl, then a girl can become a trout -- and
so she did, sitting there reading her story book on the shore of Truska,
and she couldn’t have picked a better place.
Now I admit that this is a fanciful explanation, and I
only mention it so that it can be set aside, and you can contemplate with
proper gravity the compelling truth -- that the trout of Connemara have
become literate. And this poor lad, coming ashore to the region of air
beyond his native element, where the light to read by was better no doubt,
became a martyr to his own intellectual curiosity, the Daedalaus of Derrigimlagh.
For my part, I intend to spend a lot of time fishing Truska next season,
with the intention of persuading one of his relations to give us a reading
at the Clifden Arts Week.
The fishing that day with the Trout Anglers was good craic,
but I had really ended the season for myself two days before, when I cycled
out to Lough Fada for the last time this year. I went around to the far
side and fished the two lakes beyond Lough Each, then fished Fada coming
back up the near side late in the afternoon. There was a fresh wind from
the west moving heavy cloud and passing showers of rain, but then moments
of brilliant sun, and I was at a narrow point on the lake, casting with
the wind at my back and looking to the opposite shore 50 yards away. I
was looking out to the same place across the lake for some minutes while
I laid out line and retrieved, an area of cliff coming down to the lake
with the showers passing it, and out of that mist of rain as I was looking
at it emerged a rainbow. It was as if it had been there all the time I
was looking, but was only to be seen for a few moments in that passing
shower and then it returned to its former state, and I knew that the reason
for this was none of my business, as I was only passing too.
From Tullyvoheen, good night and God bless you.
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