An Irishman’s Diary on the dawning of the age of aquarium

If I were a crustacean liberator, I would court arrest. Having plucked live lobsters or crabs from a restaurant holding tank, I would wait around for the long arm of the law. But, officer, I would insist you don’t use handcuffs. Just place wide, red rubber bands around my claws to prevent me from suddenly lashing out and nipping at someone.

Life is full of acts of nutritious cruelty. The final moments of crustaceans plunged into boiling water must be stark and horrible. I have thought about this in too many fish restaurants to be able to feel completely innocent of causing seafood pain.

But let’s pull farcical focus now to the fact that, as consumers of hot beverages, we plunge teabags into superheated water before dragging them out and discarding the mud remains of what was once white and perforated.

Scales of justice

The ducking stool performed a similar act on humans and served as a precise instrument of witch-detection. It declared those who perished by its see-saw scales of justice to be free of the guilt of being a heretic. “Hey, I am innocent (glug, glug). Told you so.”

Years ago, I saw a television programme in which scientists claimed eggs seated in the same box could communicate with each other. Empathy soared along with the audience ratings. Mad scientists had hooked up wires to eggs – the virtual Humpty Dumptys were about to get the lobster treatment and be plunged into boiling water. Wavering needles of 1970s bearded academics with their scientific rigour flailed into the red as the distress of the eggs was recorded. In the context of being boiled alive, the message that went through the egg-box grapevine was one of weeping and woe.

As a sensitive young man, I was gripped by the idea that objects could suffer. It was terrifying if things transmitted fear to one another. Friendly matches harboured secret horror ahead of their acts of immolation. Rubber bands on crab claws beefed about being overstretched. Pillars and lampposts muttered in hatred of dogs. Brother Wall and Sister Kerb. Brother Brick and Sister Stone.

Empathy

But eventually, empathy with objects must be screened out. It blinds you to the pain of animals. And humans. The trembling of wired-up eggs – findings yet to be discounted – deeply unsettled me. Only after repeatedly punching the living daylights out of my pillow to make it more comfortable was I able to succumb to the deep peace of sleep.

Goldfish bowl

Fish tanks are the most transparent theatres of cruelty – limbos for the life aquatic. You used to see people walking around Dublin with plastic bags containing goldfish. It was transportation to circular hell in a bowl and constant observation by a peckish cat. Some pals had the full aquarium kit – a turquoise chunk of cornerstone, lighting, heating and a living, breathing filter. In such domestic undersea worlds, multihued fish with elaborate rigging served watery sentences as they brought into people’s homes a touch of the Jacques Cousteau.

On Richmond Street there was a tight space called Jebi’s Aquatics. A neat oblong, the tropical fish shop was of constrained proportions – an aquarium itself in which swam the owner, his fish stock and a shoal of gawking boys. The star attraction was a piranha – defanged so as not to take the finger off you. In the world of exotic fish, it was a castrated king, cursed to a shallow life.

Who had performed this act of underwater dentistry? Whatever about human health and safety, it struck me as another cruel fish spectacle. But lessons were learned. That piranha told a cautionary tale – screw it if I was going to end up rendered toothless and indentured.

Walk down Portobello today towards the canal and, 50 yards before the bridge, you will find the tropical fish shop’s legacy. On Palaeolithic wall tiling, water creatures are fixed and glazed – Jebi’s Aquatics still rules okay.

Some years ago, a strange new strain of fish washed up on Irish waters. Mounted on wood, it was probably made in China. Press the button and music strikes up. On cue for verse one, a fake fish turns its head and sings out: “Take me to the river/Put me in the water.” It sings and sings. Robot gills opening and shutting. In full voice, it inspires crazed laughter in listeners. Verse in. Verse out. Until the music and batteries fade away. Then the fish movements slow. The fish voice falters. The song of the sea ceases – scales no more.