Through Rose-Tinted Specs
Memories of Balbriggan in the 50's

Copyright 2005
By Roger Turner
Part 8: Little Boy Fishing...

...

When the wail of the foghorn at Rockabill finally goes silent after several stormy nights, you wake up wondering if the world has come to an end. But one peek through the curtains at the wonderful sunrise glinting in the windows on the far side of the road, and you start to feel good again.
For once the weather forecaster on Radio Eireann was spot on, and I for one was going to enjoy every minute of the coming day.

I have always been an early morning person, and even now I still wake up at first light. In fact I have been up and about since half four this bright summers morning, just penning my memories for you to read. Memories that are so fresh in my mind after almost fifty years, it seems like only yesterday that I crept downstairs and into the garden to collect a few dozen juicy red worms from the compost heap.
No! Not for me breakfast, but for my morning's fishing in the canal.
It was my father that got me into fishing. I think I was about four or five when he bought me my first fishing rod and reel. No I tell a lie, he bought me 2 rods, a ten foot 3 piece one made from split cane and a shorter 2 piece fibreglass rod, and it was this rod that I always took to Balbriggan with me.
Back in the fifties I seemed to think that I was the only person to fish the canal, and, as I fixed up my tackle on the concrete overflow, people walking by would stop and tell me that I was wasting my time for there were no fish in the canal.

Well, if they lingered for a few moments longer I could show them how wrong they were, for the canal was teeming with Rudd and Trout, and not just little ones at that, but some very big fish.
My father, when he came over for the final week of our holiday would also join me in fishing the canal. He told me that for sport farmers would bring their shotguns down to the canal and shoot the big pike that also live in the canal, and if that was the case then no wonder the fish grew so big for pike are notorious for taking sick, weak, young and injured fish, and if you take the pike away then the rest of the fish just multiply and grow.
Fishing, for a shy and quiet English boy is the perfect pastime, for you just keep your back toward those who passed by on their way to and fro beside the canal.
Look, you've got me at it again... Just tell me why a mill pond was called a canal? Nobody seems to be able to answer that one! And where does the water come from? Yes, I know it's the Bracken River, but where does it come from? Maybe my guardian angel will be able to tell me. I do know that before the days of the canal came the stream was called Breac-in, meaning small trout. Well them small trout haven't half grown. One year the weeds were choking the water so fishing was not easy and I ended up in the neck end near Clonard Street. I think that was the year that I almost caught a huge trout that basked most days down near the sluice gate. I hooked it and the crafty thing went off at supersonic speed towards the weeds. I played that fish for maybe an hour until it finally tired and just as I was about to get it out my line brushed against the wall and... SNAP. The line broke. That's fishing for you.

Like you, I have walked across the embankment many hundreds of times, and walked the other way up past the back of the cinema where them vicious swans waited to ambush you, but I can't ever remember going any further upstream, so I suppose education was sadly lacking for I was only interested in the fishing back then. Mother never minded me going fishing on my own as long as I came straight home when I got bored.
When we had had a good dollop of rain, the water level would rise stopping me from fishing from the overflow and I would have to fish from the path. That meant that all and sundry would want to stop for a chat. Now, I was never talkative with strangers so I would sometimes go back to Craoibhin Park rather than fish from the pathway.
A notable feature of the canal was the fact that it always contained masses of weed, and therefore catching fish was not easy, for if they wrapped your line around the roots of the weed then that was the end of that session of fishing until I could buy some new line somewhere.
There were three areas where the weed was thin: one was my favourite place on the overflow, the next in the shallow neck end and finally across the other side where the cows came into the waters to drink. Now the problem with fishing from the other side was:
(1) You had to ask the farmer, and..
(2) Them cows were a bloody nuisance and stuck their noses into all your tackle and tried to eat your worms.
So I always tried to fish from the overflow, even when the water was high, and would wear Wellington boots, if I could borrow some.
But sometimes the water was too deep or the wind would be blowing off the water so I would be forced in the cows' field.
One day in the cows' field I was quietly fishing and minding my own business, when a young lad about my age came silently up behind me just as I was casting in. I whipped my rod back and forward to cast in and snagged this boy just above his eye... the hook was fastened in the soft flesh above his eyelid.
When I look back, it was a near disastrous situation for that boy could have so easily lost his sight. Anyway, with hook and line still in place, we trailed down to the doctors in Drogheda Street who carefully removed the hook, then gave me a right good telling off for being so careless.
The canal was at that time teeming with big fish just waiting to be caught, much to the delight of the passers-by who were insistent that there were no fish in the canal.

One year, when Nan and Steve Calow came over (must have been about 1960 or 61), they didn't stay with Aunty Eileen, who was by now busily having babies, but stayed further down the road with Mr and Mrs Yates, opposite the football field. I told Mrs Yates that I was going fishing in the canal and she told me to bring her a few fish back. I told her that they were Rudd, but she said that she had a recipe for them. So I duly obliged and within the hour had returned with the first half dozen I caught.
I can't remember if she did cook them or feed them to the cats, but I for one was not going to stick around to taste them so off I went onto the football field to play with Angela Yates, their daughter.
I have never in my whole life known a more versatile female football player, for Angela could make that football perform tricks that most premiership players would be proud of.
Now as I loved both fishing and football, I had a right dilemma. So if Angela was out playing football, then football it was, for. I was very sweet on her.
Over the coming few years we became quite friendly and played football quite a lot, then one year Angela blossomed into a nice young woman and didn't want play football, so we, er.. ah, but that would be telling, now wouldn't it?
So, let's get back to fishing.

When my dad came over we would both go fishing down the Delvin Bridge. It was supposed to be full of trout but all I could catch were dabs (little plaice).
Catching trout is a skill I never mastered.

Dad was once recommended to try out the River Nanny and had been told to go the Garda station at Julianstown to get permission. Once the sergeant knew who had sent us he couldn't do enough for us. But the river was in flood and yet again the trout eluded us. Mind you we did get to chat to some nice people who tried to show us how to fish for trout.
The next day, back in Craoibhin Park the postman brought us two trout wrapped in wet newspaper, addressed to The Englishman and his Boy who like trout fishing. They were freshly caught and had been put on the bus to be dropped off at the post office. Now that's service for you.

Nan and Steve Calow often went on about a place called Danny Riley's Pond, somewhere up near Balrothery, I seem to recall. Anyway one year dad took me to try and find it, and eventually we did, but it was all weeded up and although we did manage to catch a few fish, it was such hard work getting them out of the weed we soon packed it in.
Another pond we were told to try belonged to Jim Hagan, (brother to Tom, the Butcher in Drogheda Street)
Jim had a farm up in Clonard, and we set off to walk to it. To my little legs it seemed an age getting there, but it was worth it, for Jim and his wife, Margaret couldn't have made us more welcome.
The pond was a small disused quarry and Jim wanted to rid the pond of little fish so that he could stock it with trout, and to achieve this goal, he had put some pike in.
Now pike may take small fish but they leave the big ones and we were asked to return any pike we caught but not the coarse fish. What we weren't told was that the farm dog, a big red setter called Rouge, would insist on joining us.
That dog was a big softie and would not leave us alone. I could devote a whole chapter to Rouge and some of the stunts he pulled over the years, for he was a very clever dog. When the cows needed milking Jim only had to tell him and off Rouge went to fetch them.
One of Rouge's other tricks was to pick my pocket. Not any pocket, but the pocket I kept me sweets in. He was a canny dog, that one.
We did catch fish, and I caught a big pike that snapped so much at the indignity of being yanked out by this skinny little runt of an English boy. Rouge was no help for he sniffed it and shot backwards at high speed at the first snap.
Over the next few years we fished that pond several times and enjoyed the hospitality of the Hagan clan.

Now my dad was never content with pond and river fishing but often tried his luck fishing from the harbour mouth, just under the lighthouse. Now in those days it was a proper lighthouse, with a proper dome. I know with progress things change and the light no longer needs a fulltime keeper to trim the wick and regulate the flame, but when those vandals stole the dome they stole a huge part of Balbriggans charm.
And it's not only me who would like to see it replaced. I hope with all that is happening with the sea life centre down at Blackrock, some of the town fathers will realise just how important the visual effect of the old lighthouse could be on the tourism of the town.

Here I go again, off at a tangent talking about the lighthouse when I should be telling you about fishing off the harbour with my Dad. He did encourage me to fish from there, but I found it boring and apart from the odd crab the best bites I got was on my sandwiches.

Another place we tried to fish was off the rocks at the Bower. That didn't suit me so I went off skimming stones... far more exciting.
In the early fifties, dad was friendly with Paddy Doherty, and would slip him a few bob to go out with him round Cardy to check his lobsterpots.

Dad also made friends with Andy Reed, skipper of The Girl Nancy, and would go out spinning for mackerel whilst the boat journeyed to the trawling grounds.
Despite my protestations, they always refused to take me with them, so I had to content myself with canal.
As the 50s became the 60s I finally persuaded one skipper, who I had been nagging for weeks, to let me go out with them. Mother and Aunty Eileen went spare. But I assured them that I would be safe, and at half three the following morning I turned up at the quayside with my fishing tackle and a pack under my arm.
'What you got there, boy?' the skipper asked, pointing to the pack.
'That's me sandwiches for me breakfast and dinner,' I told him.
Talk about laugh. All the crew and the skipper were nearly crying with laughter.
'Sure, you'll not be needing them, boy,' the skipper said. 'As soon as we get in the swell you won't feel like eating.'
Oh how wrong he was.
They all thought that this skinny little English lad would be seasick all the way out, and all the way back. Well, I have never been seasick in my whole life, and I really enjoyed that day.
They taught me how they ring fished, by dropping one side of the net attached to a buoy, then let the net out until it all was gone then they came back and picked up the buoy and hauled in the catch. I was then taught which fish they had caught and which were no good. One thing that stands out clearly in my mind was the number of gulls that suddenly appeared from nowhere as soon as the first fish hit the deck: wheeling and wailing until the men started the process of gutting the fish. Then it was unmitigated chaos as the birds fought to get the first of scraps thrown overboard. Squawking and diving as the bits stared to sink and disappearing under the water to get at the sinking guts. Canny birds them gulls.
I think that day out must have been the most exciting I can remember, for once the final trawl had come out they let me steer the boat back to good old Balbriggan harbour.
Wonderful, if somewhat tiring. I also had a plate of pan fried fish on the way back for I had finished all me sandwiches hours before. Nothing like a sea voyage to give a boy an appetite.

The following term at school we had a lesson on farming and it went on to farming the sea. As I was the only kid in our class who had ever been out on a trawler, shy little old me stood up and gave a speech on how they caught fish in Balbriggan. I also had to show the class where Balbriggan was on the map and where we had been fishing. Me Mam was right proud when I told her what I had done.
I think it was one of Richardson's boats I went out on and when we got back into the harbour, I helped unload the boxes of fish and was rewarded by a couple of codling strung up with a hank of twine.
After that I would always try to be on the harbour when the boats came back in the hope that I could help unload the boxes of fish in return for a couple to take back to Craoibhin Park for supper.
You know, there is nothing quite like the taste of freshly caught and freshly cooked fish.
Back here in Sheffield we are so far from the sea that we never do get any really fresh fish. In fact unless you live on the coast where boats go out on daily basis, do you ever get truly fresh fish?
Hang on; I can feel another rant about food coming on. You may have guessed by now that food has always been one of my passions. Well, I can't deny it, for not only have I spent my whole life so far with a good appetite, but until my premature retirement a few years ago I had spent almost 40 years working in the retail food trade. It has always been physically hard and demanding work, and I am afraid it took its toll on my health, but that, as they say, is another story.
To be continued...