In 1590 the great English poet Spenser wrote of the Shannon: "The spacious Shannon, spreading like a sea". Nearly 400 years on, it is still spreading, causing damage to homes and farmland.
Since the foundation of the State two great political promises have been made by all parties. The first was full employment and the second was a pledge to drain the Shannon.
By the turn of the century, the State had achieved full employment, some 20 years after politicians stopped promising to drain the Shannon because even they knew such a task was impossible. On the last day of the millennium, the floodwaters of the great river which drains four million acres of this State, hit their highest level since 1990.
The 5.36-metre reading at Athlone brought the flood levels to within 30 centimetres of the great floods of 1954 which caused severe disruption to Athlone.
South of the town, families in Clonown and on the Leinster side of the river at Carricobrien, saw floodwaters creep up to their front doors, flooding roads and farmyards for miles around them.
Further upstream, areas which had not been flooded in many years went under water as Lough Ree filled to levels not experienced since 1952. The water backed up to Carrick-on-Shannon and north to Leitrim village.
According to Adrian Leddy, the Irish Farmers' Association's organiser in the area, roads and fields which had never been flooded in living memory were under water as Lough Allen filled to the brim.
He estimated that millions of pounds' worth of damage had been caused to roads and farm buildings and that the level of flooding was about 10 per cent more than normal.
"We had severe disruption in the north Roscommon area. Main roads were closed and parts of Carrick-on-Shannon which never flooded were under water," he said.
He said that road and other developments in many of the counties were a contributory factor to recent high flood levels and the lack of grants for carrying out drainage on farms.
The whole issue of flooding and the damage to roads is to be discussed at a meeting of Roscommon County Council on Monday next. On Sunday the IFA will host a press conference and seminar in Athlone on the problems facing their members.
As the floodwaters began to fall earlier this week, people not only in the Shannon basin but in other areas of the country were trying to find out why this was happening.
The experts point to the excessively high rainfall in December and one of them, John Mulqueen, who is Teagasc's drainage specialist and has taken part in Government surveys of the Shannon, said the rivers and lakes, especially in the west, could not accommodate the amount of rain that fell in December.
"There is nothing new about flooding on the Shannon. It's being going on since the beginning of time, and the truth is there is very little that can be done about it," he said.
"The amount of rain which has fallen here in the west since the beginning of December has been astonishing, even by Irish standards, and basically our river systems cannot cope with it when it rains like it has been doing.
"Fortunately, it does not happen every year. There are cycles of weather like this.
"The main problem is that there is virtually no fall in levels between Athlone and Killaloe on Lough Derg, so when waters build upstream, there is nowhere for it to go."
MANY of the farmers who worked the floodlands along the river were given new farms by the Land Commission in the 1950s and 1960s, and those who remain now plan their lives round the rise and fall of the levels.
A similar scheme is being operated in the Gort area where over the past decade a number of houses have been abandoned by their owners because of flooding in the area.
The local Fine Gael TD, Ulick Burke, is convinced that the Government should insist that the Office of Public Works carry out major arterial drainage works when a national study of flooding problems has been completed.
He accused Duchas, the heritage service, of obstructing even small drainage schemes which would do much to alleviate local flooding. Its policy would have to be changed to allow the problems facing many communities in the west be resolved, he said.
Those who believe that the weather is getting wetter will find comfort in the figures published by Met Eireann, the meteorology service, which cover the last 100 years.
A decadal breakdown of annual rainfall totals from the Malin Head, Phoenix Park and Valentia observatories shows increased levels of rain in the last two decades of the 20th century. These are particularly apparent on the Malin Head and Valentia returns.
The rainfall returns for December last make interesting reading, too. They show that in some places, especially along the west coast, rainfall levels were twice the normal amount, which resulted in flooding.
Tanya McMahon of Earth watch has no doubt that the weather changes which are bringing flooding and drought in some areas are being caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
She predicts that the problems will increase unless the Government moves quickly to reduce emissions, especially from transport vehicles. If proper action were taken, there could be substantial improvements before the end of this year, she says.
She suggests that the Government embark on a policy of planting water-retaining trees like willow and elder along the banks of our major rivers to reduce the levels of flooding which are bound to continue if we continue to pump out greenhouse gases.