The salmon of Lough Derg

The salmon of Lough Derg

Lough Derg--Folklore--John O'Donovan--Salmon

"There is one strange fact connected with this lake - no salmon come into it, though they come up to the very point where the River Derg escapes out of it…"

John O'Donovan, 1806-1861

Letter from John O'Donovan, Ballyshanny, 1st of November, 1835, p. 251-52, O’Donovan, John, Ordnance Survey Letters, Donegal: Letters Containing Information Relative to the Antiquities of the County of Donegal Collected during the Progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1835, p. 124-25

Four Masters Press, Dublin

1835 [2000]

Transcribed and edited by Michael Herity, MRIA

Citation for the purposes of criticism

Edited edition of letters

English with Irish text in Celtic script

Ordnance Survey Letters

DD_0178

54.631629,-7.862233

"There is one strange fact connected with this lake - no salmon come into it, though they come up to the very point where the River Derg escapes out of it. Two fishermen who had a weir near the source of the Derg cast two live salmons into it not many years ago, to see if they would remain in it, and in order to know them they cut off a part of their fins and tails. But on their return to their nets they found the same salmons caught in a Cochall. This, like every thing else of the kind is attributed to the curse of Patrick. He was one day sitting on a stone at that point of Saints' Island which was connected to the main land by a wooden bridge, with his legs near the water and reading his book, and a wanton salmon passed by and splashed the water on his book, which vexed the Saint to such a degree that he prayed to God that no salmon would be allowed to come into the lake for the future. God, who humoured the little whims and angry fits of Patrick as a fond mother does those of a child whom she is sure to spoil, granted that request; for he has not since that day suffered a single salmon to come further than the throat of the river."

Hand written letters held in Royal Irish Academy