The Spiritual Importance of the River Shannon

Lough Derg on the River Shannon from the 'Lookout', near Portroe 1 July2018
- a landscape of spiritual importance

Notes made in preparation for an interview with Anna Kavanagh on 10th November 2018 for the Athlone Community Radio series ' Taste the Pure Drop', to be broadcast in February 2019. Others interviewed with me were Donal Whelan (River Shannon Protection Alliance), Liam Minehan (Fight the Pipe Campaign) and Catriona Hilliard (Heritage Boat Association).

1.      I want to focus on the spiritual importance of the River Shannon, as a member of the Community of St Brendan the Navigator.

·         The river has had a spiritual importance from pagan times – it is named for the Celtic goddess Sionna.

·         For the early Celtic church, the Shannon was a great highway opening up the interior to the outside world. The saints travelled up and down it and founded monasteries along and close to it.

·         Among them are: St Brendan the Navigator’s first monastery of Ardfert, St Senan’s of Inis Cathaig (Scattery island), St Munchin’s of Limerick, St Molua’s (later St Flannan’s) of Killaloe, St Caimin’s of Inis Cealtra in Lough Derg, St Columba’s of Terryglass, St Ruadhan’s of Lorrha, St Brendan’s of Birr, St Brendan the Navigator’s last foundation at Clonfert, St Ciaran’s of Clonmacnoise, St Diarmuid’s of Inishcleraun in Lough Ree, etc.

·         Bord Failte are marketing the Shannon as ‘Ireland’s hidden heartlands’, but it should really be marketed as ‘The Saints' Way’, I think.

2.      For those like me who have been brought up close by, or live along it, and love it, the River Shannon is of great personal spiritual importance.

·         The part I know best is the stretch from Limerick City to Portumna including Lough Derg. I live in Dromineer on the Tipperary side of Lough Derg. I have known it all my life.

·         As a small boy I stayed for holidays in Meelick Cottage in Luska bay, reached only by boat. Later I brought my own children on holiday there, and they in their turn brought their children.

·         My mother’s family have an association with Lough Derg and sailing going back to my great-great-grandfather in the 1870s.

·         I have spent a lifetime looking out over the river and its lakes in all its moods, rowing and sailing on its waters, rambling along its banks, and being delighted by the plants and animals to be found there. For me and so many others it is a God-given gift. I feel as close to God as anywhere on earth when I am beside it. My heart echoes WBYates ‘Lake Isle of Innisfree’:

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

3.      A key part of the Shannon’s spiritual importance is its unique and special natural heritage, which displays the amazing beauty and diversity of God’s creation.

·         The limestone shores of Lough Derg are unique ecosystem, like a rock garden supporting a wonderful flora, including Fly, Bee, Fragrant and Marsh helleborine orchids, Grass of Parnassus, Blue-eyed Grass and the Bloody Cranesbill, among a host of other more common species. One plant which grows on the banks of Lough Derg but nowhere else in the British Isles is the Willow-leaved Inula (Inula salicina) – I grow it in my garden, from a slip given me by the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, which collected it by the lake. Another unique ecosystem is the Shannon Callows which flood every winter, maintained by traditional agricultural practices.

·         Among the insects are Mayflies, which dance on the water and are imitated by anglers to catch trout by dapping on the wet fly. There are many species of dragon and demoiselle flies, as well as butterflies, including the rare Brown Hairstreak, Dingy Skipper and Marsh Fritillary.

·        Among the fish are trout, eels and salmon, all sadly reduced in numbers in recent years. The Pollan, an endangered endemic species, still holds on in the larger Shannon lakes, Allen, Ree and Derg.

·         Among birds, the Corncrake can still be heard in the Shannon Callows, but is in severe decline. The lakes are very important winter grounds for many migrating water birds, including Whooper swans. And it is wonderful to have White tailed eagles breeding again around Lough Derg, reintroduced after being extinct for 100 years.

4.      Of equal spiritual importance is the Shannon’s cultural heritage - the places, the buildings, the history, the stories and the people.

·         These include the surviving medieval churches and castles, the Georgian and Victorian buildings in river side towns, the 18^th and 19^th century navigations, and the early 20^th century Shannon scheme.

·         We must honour the people for whom the Shannon has been a passion, and those who have created the communities along it, among them Syd Shine, a founder member of the IWAI who lived on a barge called the Fox, and Rick Boelens of the Lough Derg Science Group.

·         People like me who identify with the river have a real sense of belonging to it, memories of a home even when we are far from home. Such stable roots are vital to spiritual stability in our ever-changing world.

5.      For me it is a spiritual duty to preserve the heritage of the Shannon. So how should we do it?

·         Thank God, much of the Shannon is now protected as Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas. But the river remains under threat in so many ways. We need to take very seriously the spiritual duty of protecting it and all its creatures, including ourselves.

·         We cannot try to wrap the Shannon up in a cocoon and keep it unchanged, because the river is always changing, and will always change. I know a sandy bay where I used to paddle and wade as a boy, but which has now turned into a marsh – this is a natural process.

·         The communities along the river too will always change. It is the people who live around the Shannon who carry with them the spiritual importance of the Shannon. They must continue to live and thrive in the environment, with good jobs which allow them to live prosperous lives, while enjoying, protecting and enhancing their natural and cultural environment.

·         Proposals have been put forward to pump water from the middle or lower Shannon to Dublin. Earlier proposals to pump from Lough Ree or the upper reaches of Lough Derg could have been disastrous for ecosystems, but happily the worst of them have been averted, in part because of the efforts of the River Shannon Protection Alliance. The latest plans are much more benign, though I do not think they are the best way to meet Dublin’s real needs.

·         I believe the best way forward will be to manage the entire Shannon corridor as an IUCN Category 5 protected landscape, with state-owned land (ESB, Coillte & Bord na Mona) designated as a National Park at its heart. This was proposed for the lower Shannon by the Waterways Corridor Study 2006, but so far as I am aware this never been progressed following the great crash.

·         It should be a key objective to resurrect this proposal. The focus should be to combine protection of sensitive ecosystems with support for development of sustainable spiritual tourism and eco-tourism, alongside sustainable added value farming through schemes akin to Burrenbeo, and sustainable development of industries in Shannon-side towns and villages.

On the Island of Birds

The Navigatio or Voyage of St Brendan is filled with fabulous tales which cannot be taken as history. This extract from chapter 11 beautifully illustrates the spirituality of the people Brendan inspired. Notice their attention to creation, which they relate to scripture, in this case the familiar psalms which they would chant every day - the words the birds chant are verses from different psalms.

On the approach of the hour of vespers, all the birds, in unison, clapping their wings, began to sing ‘A hymn, O Lord, becometh Thee in Sion, and a vow shall be paid to Thee in Jerusalem’ (Ps 65:1); and they alternately chanted the same psalm for an hour; and the melody of their warbling and the accompanying clapping of their wings, sounded like unto a delightful harmony of great sweetness. When supper was ended, and the divine office discharged, Brendan and his companions retired to rest until the third watch of the night, when he aroused them all from sleep, chanting the verse: ‘Thou, O Lord, wilt open my lips’ (Ps 51:16), whereupon all the birds, with voice and wing, warbled in response: ‘Praise the Lord, all His angels, praise Him all His virtues’ (Ps 103:21). Thus they sang for an hour every night; and when morning dawned, they chanted: ‘May the splendour of the Lord God be upon us’ (Ps 90:17) in the same melody and rhythm as their matins praises of God. Again, at tierce, they sang the verse: ‘Sing to our God, sing; sing to our King, sing wisely’ (Ps 47:6); at sext: ‘The Lord hath caused the light of His countenance to shine upon us, and may He have mercy on us’ (Ps 67:1); and at nones they sang ‘Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity’ (Ps 133:1). Thus day and night those birds gave praise to God. St Brendan, seeing all this, made thanksgiving to the Lord for all His wonderful works; and the brethren were thus regaled with such spiritual viands until the octave of the Easter festival.

Our God-given world is full of real life wonders too - watch this amazing video of a murmuration of starlings on Lough Derg, just a few miles up the lake from my home.

Lough Derg water extraction - an appeal to North Tipp public representatives

In response to the front page story in the Nenagh Guardian for 25th September 2010, ‘Dublin must pay cash for our water’, I wrote the following letter to the Editor, which was published in the 2nd October edition.

Sir,

I am dismayed at the reported comments of some County Councillors about taking water from Lough Derg for Dublin (front page, last week). Talk of making Dublin pay for our water will only encourage the powerful and unaccountable promoters of this bad scheme to press ahead*. Lough Derg is part of our heritage, and a valuable resource for recreation and tourism. It is not for sale!

If ever built, this €450 million scheme will likely be an expensive white elephant. The promoters try to justify it by saying Dublin will need half again as much water by 2040 as it uses in 2010. But this is based on Celtic Tiger era projections for population and economic growth in the Dublin Regional Planning Guidelines, which surely no one believes anymore. With realistic growth projections, fixing leaks, and sensible demand management measures, like rainwater harvesting and water metering and charging, Dublin will not need the water.

There is a risk that Lough Derg could be irreparably damaged by the scheme. No one yet knows enough about the hydrology and ecology of the lake to know what its impact will be. It would be extremely foolish to take decisions without a proper scientific understanding.

Rather than talk about money, I call on our public representatives to demand two things before any decisions are taken:

1. an independent review of the demand assumptions on which the scheme is based;
2. adequately funded independent scientific studies of Lough Derg, which should be paid for at arms length by the scheme’s promoters.

Joc Sanders,
Dromineer

*The editor, as is his right, saw fit to omit these words: ‘You’ve shown you’re a whore - now let’s haggle over the price’ - that is, I fear, how talk of payment for water will be seen by the scheme's promoters.

Shannon water for Dublin?

Tomorrow, Thursday, RPS consultants will present a report to the Environment & Engineering Strategic Policy Committee of Dublin City Council, recommending that 350 million litres of water a day should be pumped from Slevoir Bay on Lough Derg to a storage reservoir at Bord na Mona's Garryhinch Bog in Co Offaly, for treatment and distribution as drinking water to the Greater Dublin area and surrounding counties.

Last night Gerry Geoghegan of RPS, accompanied by Colm O Gogain and Pat Fitzgerald of Bord na Mona, gave a preview of their recommendations to a meeting of the Lough Derg branch of the Shannon Protection Alliance in Dromineer, which I attended. They were given quite a hard time. Questions and comments from the floor showed the extent of local opposition to this project. It is clear that there is a vast lack of trust in the water engineers and planners in Dublin and Bord na Mona not to ruin the wonderful natural resource of Lough Derg, which I can see out of my window as I write. The diagrams here are taken from the presentation.

This story will run and run - shades of Shell to Sea.

My own first thoughts on the issue, for what they are worth (probably rather little!) are these:

First, I question the need for a new water supply for Dublin.

The origins of the project lie in the crazy Celtic Tiger years. Demand was forecast to grow from 540Ml/d in 2010 to 800Ml/d in 2031, driven by a growing population and economy. But the economy is now contracting and population is falling, and neither is ever likely to return to the Celtic tiger rates. In future water is likely to be metered and charged for, reducing demand further. And sustainable future growth should be balanced across the State and not just in the Dublin region. As a citizen I do not want to see public money wasted on an unnecessary project. I suspect that those who have spent so many years promoting and planning for the project are not facing up to the chnaged world.

Before the project is allowed to proceed it is essential that the assumptions on which it is based are subjected to independent review, in the light of current data.

Second, (assuming the need for a new water supply for Dublin is confirmed) the proposed option appears to address many of the possible objections, and is difficult to argue against:

• The 4m3/s average extraction is less than 2½ % of the 176m3/s average flow through Lough Derg. The Garryhinch Bog storage will be a buffer to prevent excessive extraction during periods of low flow if it is properly sized. Water flow can be controlled by the ESB at Parteen & Ardnacrusha to maintain water levels in Lough Derg within the current statutory limits.
  
• Alternatives such as desalination and tapping groundwater are unsustainable: desalination is energy intensive and likely to increase CO2 emissions; groundwater is an unrenewable resource.

Lastly, if the project goes ahead, it will be vital to ensure that it will not damage the Lough Derg environment in any significant ways.

In my view we should concentrate our efforts on this, rather than take a position of blanket opposition.

In particular we need to focus on:

• Improving the currently inadequate scientific understanding of the Lough Derg ecosystem before decisions are made, which must be funded by the project sponsors.
  
• Monitoring plans for the extraction point in Terryglass bay and the pipeline through the Shannon catchment to ensure they are environmentally and socially acceptable.
  
• Working jointly with similar groups monitoring plans for the Garryhinch Bog storage and onward pipeline.
  
• Ensuring that extraction protocols are developed, based on sound science and legally enforceable, to ensure the Lough Derg environment is adequately protected.


• We should also seek a ‘planning gain’ from the project, with money made available for continuing scientific studies and projects to improve water quality and biodiversity of the entire catchment, and sustainable development of local communities.
  
• We should campaign for integrated environmental management of the South Shannon Corridor through application of the IUCN Category V Protected Landscape approach. Several thousand acres of riparian land are already in public ownership, through ESB and Coillte, and a first step would be to develop an Integrated Management Plan for this public land.

An empty garden

Joakim’s garden feels empty again – the four grandsons and three daughters have all gone back to their own homes, variously in Kilkenny, Wales and England, leaving behind them very happy memories, many photos, and a large pale patch in the lawn where the tent was pitched. The big boys – Cal, Finn and Gabe - came for a week’s sailing tuition on Lough Derg (with Shannon Sailing - I can heartily recommend them). They had a super time I think, and certainly plenty of wind! Little Jonah came with his parents to be shown off and run charmingly around the garden. I felt sad to see them go, reminded of so many goodbyes said, but very grateful indeed that they should have come so far to visit Dad or Grandfather/Grandpa/Oompapa on his own turf. The jury is still out on what Jonah will call me: I prefer Grandfather, because that was what I called my mother’s father and I value the sense of continuity, but there are those who feel that sounds too Victorian and cold – I can’t think why, because though older than I am now, my Grandfather certainly wasn’t.

Flower-fairies - Jonah and Grandfather in Susanna's Labyrinth

Happy Jonah!

Boys make a sandwich (t-b Cal, Gabe, Finn)

The Tent

I've not been good at blogging the garden this month (mea culpa!), but here are some pictures of the garden in August:

Susanna is the sweet-pea queen of North Tipp!

Day-lilies and white Agapanthus

Blue Agapanthus

Coppery Sunflower

Salvia patens - a gorgeous gentian blue!

Salvia cacalifolia - I have a bit of a thing about Salvias!

I have managed the vegetable garden better this year - here we have leeks, brassicas (Brussels Sprouts and Purple Sprouting) with asparagus, potatoes, climbing beans and artichokes behind. Susanna's peas were most disappointing, but we are now dining on our own potatoes, French beans and spinach-beet, and freezing for the winter.