Welcoming the Friends of the Dripsey River Monsters

We were delighted to have a visit from the Friends of the Dripsey River monsters. We welcomed Caddis Fly, May Fly and Stone Fly to the park. Each of these giant creatures have tiny super hero counterparts that we would love to see populate the Glen river. In order to do this we must ensure that the riverwater and its bed is healthy .

Currently there is clear evidence of contamination in the water showing as a grey silty build up on the stones, this sludge inhibits oxygen and stops life in the river. A recent report by Dr. Simon Harrison (School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences UCC) found that there is a high level of phosphates in the water at various points where pipes come into the river, indicating that sewage is coming into the river through the storm drains. This data, which shows exceptionally high levels of phosphates from one particluar pipe, suggests that there are sewer pipes feeding directly and continuously into the river just upstream from the park.

Our heroes Mayfly, Caddis Fly and Stonefly are very sensitive to water pollution, and their presence in our river would indicate that our water is clean and helathy. Unfortunately in our kick samples taken from the river bed on Sunday (28th July), we found only one of these creatures – a single mayfly nymph –  suggesting that the water is too badly contaminated for a population of invertabrates to thrive in the water. As these creatures are at the bottom of the food chain it impacts other river creatures like the thorneen and the brown trout and riverine birds such as the dipper. According to local people and many who have grown up in the Glen there are waning presences of many river creatures, there have been no sightings of fish in the river for some time, the thorneen and the redbelly of their youth are now things of the past. We need to take more care of the water to allow wildlife and bio diversity to flourish.

So we welcome the Dripsey River Creatures, giant sized monsters with human interiors who are the Friends of the Dripsey River who are doing so much to make their tiny counterparts visible to other humans.

The Dripsey River monsters led us on a parade of the park, cirucmnavigating the ponds and returning to be greeted by the Glen River Guardian and to hear her warning about the water. This is the first leg of the creatures’ pilgrimmage to the source of the Lee. They will be making appearances along the tributaries of the Lee in a reverse journey to commemorate the banishing of the monster by Fionn Barra many centuries ago. See more about the story of the Péist here