A carefree resident of the Rampart River

This week's Cavanman's Diary

The Rampart river runs by our house. After the recent dry spell, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it as low. My neighbour tells me it's full of trout but I’ve never seen any.

Here is one thing I have observed, though. There is a grey heron, who is to be spotted most days, usually on its own but, on rare occasions, together with another.

It’s fascinating and strangely calming to watch this heron. He stands completely motionless for the most part. Sometimes, he will walk a little bit, moving stealthily, as if stalking, and the odd time, he’ll fly away. But usually, his are days of stillness and serenity.

Across the bank and beyond the trees, we are living in the age of the Coronavirus, when everyone seems scared. The world is caught up in a frenzy of crises. But on the river, all is calm now, the grey heron the calmest of all.

A couple of hundred metres downstream, the Rampart flows into Lough Ramor, a huge, shallow lake. There is evidence that people lived around here 4000 years ago. Out in the middle, the crannógs on which families eked out their lives in early Christian times, fending off invaders, have grown quiet now too, covered in willows, visited only by wildlife. They haven’t changed in hundreds of years.

I wonder where did the river get this name? A rampart is a defensive fortification. In a way, that makes sense. As calm as it is, this stretch of water has been the scene of great battles. “Important places, times when great events were decided…”

As always, the archives of this newspaper provide milestones on the map.

In 1946, Mr J Hopkins caught six pike in its murky depths. Two of them came in at 17lbs and 19lbs respectively – whoppers of fish. The following year, Sean Duffy landed a 25-pounder. Mr L Gillick bagged a trout weighing 3.5lbs; someone else caught a 5lb eel.

A bream was landed, 11lb in weight. These were notable events, worthy of the local paper.

In the early 1960s, an angling club was formed. These men tidied up the paths, cleared out weeds, created spawning beds and restocked the river. Competitions confined to English anglers only would attract entries of 40-plus.

They brought their rods and reels from places like Newcastle and Southport, Salford and Bedfordshire. A group from Wiltshire arrived with otters one year and released them on the bank for a hunt with hounds. After a two-hour chase, it was reported, the otter got away.

And in the summer of 1976, a predator from the depths also made a splash in print.

“Mr Kieran Reilly, Main Street, had an unusual experience on Sunday last. While spinning for pike in the Rampart river, he hooked a jackpike of 1.5lbs. While reeling in the fish, he thought he got caught in some weeds.

“When he got free, to his amazement, he discovered that a pike about 6lbs had taken the jackpike. He could plainly see the big pike with the smaller fish across in his mouth.

“After playing them both for about 20 minutes, and when he thought he had the battle won, the big pike suddenly let go and all he had left was a badly-mangled jackpike.”

A greedy pike will do that, a river pike even more likely. Beneath the surface, they must grow robust and hardier than their lake-dwelling compatriots to cope with the currents.

More signposts. In 1975, John Coyle, Riverside, landed a 3lb salmon in the lake. It was thought to be the first salmon ever caught in Lough Ramor, probably escaped from the hatchery on the Rampart River.

And in 1987, a statue of Our Lady was erected near the bridge. It remains to this day.

My favourite tale was from the sixties when three mad bulls owned by Mr A. Soden waded into the river, spooked by a red setter they had seen in an adjoining field, trampling equipment as the Englishmen scattered for cover.

Today, as I write, there are no English anglers to be seen. Everyone is at home, fretting as to when normality can resume. Holding the fort, the rampart, is the grey heron, all alone, as he likes it. While nobody has taken more fish from the water, his never make it to newsprint.

It’s Sunday evening and I can see him now, down at the corner, beside the graveyard. That section seems deeper and that’s where he likes it, in the shade of a fallen tree, waiting for his supper.

I’d like to know more about this magnificent bird. I’ve decided he’s male but I could be wrong. A search online tells me that they live for an average of five blissful years. In some cultures, they are almost sacred, symbols of tranquillity. They mate for life but most of their days are solitary, placidly standing in the water, watching the world go by, ignoring the noise.

There’s a lot to admire in that. It’s an image that restores faith. It’s almost meditative. In his world, there’s no ‘new normal’ to be afraid of. There’s just normal, taking the minutes and hours as they come.

Some herons live in Ireland all year round and breed, I have read; others come for a while from the UK and even as far away as Scandinavia.

So, perhaps my heron is a Brit. Or a Norwegian. Why, though, does he make this little stretch of Cavan water his home? And has he noticed that, lately, life has changed, that people are not carefree like he is but frightened and pre-occupied, stoked up by viruses and riots and pressure?

Most likely, he’s oblivious, lost in contemplation. Or maybe, like most of us, he’s just going with the flow as best he can.