Book extract: Ecologist and author, Richard Nairn shares an excerpt from his new book Wild Waters...
WHEN I STAND beside the clear bubbling water of the river that flows through our farm, I look up to the hill where it rises, a rocky summit covered in heather and gorse. Here the water trickles from springs and boggy hollows to coalesce in several small streams that eventually form a single channel.
The origins There is a legend that all the Irish rivers were created by a single hailstorm. It is an example of the mythology that surrounds many of our natural waterways, the rivers and lakes, streams and springs. She is said to have eaten the Salmon of Knowledge and thus became the wisest person in the world. Whatever about the origin of these stories, the facts surrounding the real origins of the rivers are equally fascinating.When you look at a map of Ireland showing all of the rivers, each one appears like a cluster of upturned tree roots with a massive and complicated network of channels.
The Shannon is by far the longest river network in Ireland with over 10,000 kilometres of measured channel. It can be claimed by eleven counties with rainwater landing on around one-seventh of the entire island flowing into it. Following the Shannon, the other most important rivers, in order of catchment size, are the Bann, Erne, Suir, Munster Blackwater, Corrib, Barrow, Foyle, Boyne, Nore and Slaney.
Shutterstock / KRIACHKO OLEKSII Freshwater pearl mussel. Shutterstock / KRIACHKO OLEKSII / KRIACHKO OLEKSII
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