We are not very good, in this country, at handling water. Never mind whiskey. Quite recently John Bruton was going on about a huge scheme to bring Meath a bigger share of the tourist industry, and at the same time spoke of restoring the Boyne system as a major salmonoid fishery.
There quickly follows in the Meath Chronicle of August 10th, a huge heading all across the front page: "Big Kill Wipes Out Fish Stocks on Boyne Tributary". And, according to an authority quoted, this will affect fish stocks for two or three years. While the fish kill occurred on the Delvin river, which feeds the Mattock and eventually the Boyne, the Delvin is an important nursery stream for the whole Boyne system.
Think not only of local and visiting anglers, but also of the netmen who make their living by fishing, as Mr Barry Flood, an angling spokesman said. Interestingly, the Eastern Regional Fisheries Board warned the public not to eat any of the fish killed, as they had been poisoned "by a toxic substance" which was thought not to be slurry or silage. This Boyne water has been a source of contention for a long time. John Healy used to write of the rape of the river by the arterial drainage of a decade or two ago.
But it's not all gloom. The same issue of the Chronicle announces that tourism in the area will get a boost with the opening of an information centre at the very site of the Battle of the Boyne at Oldbridge! The development group involved has also undertaken other projects including forestry work and, believe it or not, the improvement of game and coarse angling.
Help yourself is the motto of the busiest group on the whole Boyne system the people who organise the Moynalty Steam Threshing Festival, held last Sunday. A couple down from County Antrim couldn't believe the extent of the fields used for car parking, loved the clouds of smoke from the old machines and, said the man, "let me smell that stook of oats". And he did. Everything reminded him of his youth in the North: the horses, the machines, the lovely holiday mood of the crowd of young and old ("look at some of those faces"). But perhaps above all the horses, noble servants.
Gorgeous weather. They earn it, these folk. People sitting on the grass, jackets of just like the summers we think we used to have.