An Irishman’s Diary on the story of the bear in the Liffey

Talking to some friends recently I casually mentioned the story of the bear in the Liffey. "The what in the Liffey ", they exclaimed in unison. They thought I was having one of my senior moments and had lost the plot

I stressed that, no, it wasn’t a joke. It really happened. A big black, fully grown dead bear was found in the Liffey back in April 1983.

Of course it’s not the sort of thing you expect to find in the Liffey every day. A bear is more at home in the jungle climbing trees and eating bananas rather than doing the breast stroke down the Liffey.

Admittedly, back in the old days you could find almost anything buried in that putrid river. You could find rusty washing machines, fridges, bicycles, supermarket trolleys . . . everything. You name it and it was there.

Clearing the Hurdles: An Irishman’s Diary on property developer Joe McGowan

---

The Irish Times view on Leaving Cert reforms

---

The Irish Times view on Ukraine’s election: a comic’s turn

---

We cannot go back to a hard Border any more than Berlin could return to the Wall

---

On top of all that, the stench rising from its depths was renowned. It was said that if you stood on O’Connell Bridge for more than five minutes when the tide was out you could become violently ill. I used to have the utmost sympathy for the huge entry in the annual Liffey swim. I wondered how they could endanger themselves in such treacle. I also worried a lot for that poor man standing on the bridge who spent 40 years taking photographs of passers-by (he actually lived to a fine old age and I wrote his obituary for this newspaper).

But I must stress that those dreadful conditions prevailed a long ago and the river has been cleaned and improved in recent years. And yes, I don’t detect the famous smell any more. That is no loss.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the bear.

It all started when I was in the middle of a telephone conversation with an official in Dublin City Council. He laughed and said, “I suppose you heard about the bear in the Liffey?” Naturally I thought he was trying to be funny and the story I had rung him up about certainly didn’t have anything to do with bears, real or imagined. He convinced me it was true and he gave me all the details.

Exotic animal

Apparently, this man was out walking his dog along the Liffey banks below Chapelizod, at Longmeadow. It was a walk he took regularly and it was usually uneventful. Well, he got one hell of a fright that day. There was the big black corpse in front of him. After recovering from the shock and making sure it was in fact dead he contacted Dublin Corporation (now known as Dublin City Council). They handled the situation from there. As for the man, he has probably being dining out on that discovery for the past few decades.

I decided to make inquiries to see where the exotic animal might have come from, but nobody seemed to know. It seemed to be just one of life’s many little mysteries. There had been no circus in the area that week. The zoo was not missing any bears. No person who might have had a large bear as a pet came forward. We drew a blank.

Anyway, being an enthusiastic young reporter at the time with this exclusive in my grasp, I asked the council official on the phone if we could arrange to send out a photographer to take a picture of the beast. It would look great on the front page. No luck. I was hit with the bad news: the bear had been dispatched by the council workers to the nearest dump. It was well covered with rubbish at that stage.

Skeleton of a bear

Of course you know what is going to happen in the future? Yes, It means that in a couple of hundred years time archaeologists will be digging up the dump area and find the skeleton of a bear. What will they think of that? They will think that bears were roaming free around Ireland in the 1980s. And you really can’t blame them for misinforming the public. Although if they go into the National Library and read this article they will know the truth.

Looking back on this story, there is the possibility that someone had the bear as a pet and that he just died and was dumped in the Liffey. Not too far fetched, people do keep unusual pets. There was a guy living in Fairview back in the 1950s who had three lions in a shed in his back garden. One day they escaped and frightened the life out of the people of Fairview. However, they were old and harmless beasts and I don’t think they did any damage. They were eventually captured.

Apparently, the owner was mad about lions. He went on to become a very well-known lion tamer in various circuses. That was until he was killed by an angry old lion he had been advised not to buy. RTÉ did a very good programme on this man some years ago.

Then there was the man who used to keep snakes in a special room in his house. Then one day there was a big accident. A few big, slimey ones made their slippery escape and frightened the bejasus out of the neighbours. Again, they were eventually captured and brought back to their owner who was distraught at the loss of his pets. So all was well that ended well.

The moral of these stories is: if you are really determined to have a pet, stick with the old reliables . . . the dog, the cat or the budgie.