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+--- Thread: The Horse-Eels Of Connemara (/showthread.php?tid=2551)
The Horse-Eels Of Connemara - BIAD - 01-17-2025
With the Rogue Nation archived site down, I wondered if I could scrounge up one of the threads that some might find
interesting. With this pragmatic and pessimistic humanity swiftly moving away from the times when our world moved
slower and a different type of night prowled outside one's window, I think it's somehow comforting to know there are
still places where the winds of wordage still bring a chill to a listener's reasoning.
We're all familiar with the many accounts of the that elusive beastie that lurks in Loch Ness, but over in a certain
region of western Ireland there are tales of similar aquatic animals that managed to evade most of the media's
demands for reader consumption. The area of Connacht holds counties where lakes (loughs) that vary in size and
depth, are lonely pools are home to trout, salmon and the odd otter that know little of regular traffic.
Wild and rugged landscapes with acres of bogland, mountains and hills hold sway and accept the Atlantic weather
without complaint. The Great Famine of the late 1840’s brought catastrophic death and suffering in Ireland and
Connacht ranked as the region hardest hit with some estimates that twenty-five-percent of its population died.
The famine’s effects fell disproportionately on native Irish speakers such as those living in Connemara. and by 1840,
only around twenty-three people still lived in the settlement north of the Shanakeever valley in 1840. Yet the tales
of other inhabitants of Connacht fortunately endured. Let's take a look.
................................
On a cold rainy morning of 1944, a farmer called Patrick Canning was worried about a pregnant donkey that grazed
along the reedy banks of Shanakeever lake and deciding the inclement weather might be too much for an outdoor
delivery, he trudged through the deluge towards one of the streams that fed the small body of water. Peering across
the reeds and tall grass, Canning saw his donkey stand up as if appreciating his attendance and yet, the scene at
that moment left Patrick believing he was too late to take part in the pregnancy.
Lough Shanakeever.
A dark shape -possibly the half-hidden foal itself, seemed to be slowly circling its mother as if wishing to nurse and
the farmer concerned that the pair were too close to the water's edge, was suddenly surprised when the black form
stopped its lurking and promptly disappeared smoothly into the stream.
Confounded by the situation, Canning led the still-pregnant donkey away from the Shanakeever lake and a few days
later, the foal was born. A few years later, Patrick Canning provided a brief description to a researcher and explained
his sighting took place at a distance of three hundred yards.
"It was long. And it was rather a bit high, you know. It was black. My sight was not...because there
was mist and rain and everything. The neck seemed to be...I'd say it was a bit long...."
He would go onto to claim the animal had legs and ears upon its head. It circled the donkey "gently"
Canning was certain it was not an otter and understood what he'd seen was what was referred to locally
as a horse-eel.
................................
Some time in the 1970's, a report came forward from another Patrick, this was Patrick Walsh who was in a row-boat
upon Lough Shanakeever when the head and neck and a creature surfaced nearby. In fear that the strange shape may
capsize his boat, Mr. Walsh immediately rowed to shore. Patrick recalled that two men who had gone down to the
shore in order to inspect an unusual object near land when it came to life and swam off. Mr Walsh agreed with the
description provided by the men that it as eel-like and 16 feet long.
However, the account of the 'counterfeit foal' wasn't the last word from Patrick Canning. During his interview with
the researcher, the farmer noted an incident he'd heard some few years earlier on the shores of Lough Ballynahinch.
A lake of almost three miles long, is fed by two other large bodies of water (Derryclare Lough and Lough Inagh).
Lough Ballynahinchis is inland of Shanakeever lake and several miles to the east.
Some children had been playing along the gorse-edged beach when they noticed a dark animal capering beside the
water. Taking that the creature must be -in their words 'a grand little foal', the ran back their to their parents' cottage
in order to relate their observation. On returning to the location, the children and their elders witnessed the assumed
equine dive into Lough Ballynahinch and slip beneath its waters. The parents took the sighting to be of a horse-eel.
................................
In 1998, Tom Joyce -a long time resident of the Shanakeever valley, was interviewed regarding a sighting of his own
in Lough Shanakeever. It was 1963 and Mr. Joyce had been guiding sheep to the farmyard when a commotion broke
out upon the otherwise calm surface of the Lough Shanakeever. Moving away from the shore before curving slightly
parallel to where Mr Joyce watched, he witnessed a large grayish hump 'sparkling' in the sunlight. The object entered
a patch of reeds where its larger submerged bulk crushed over the plants as it crept along before finally sinking below.
Tom Joyce estimated the creature to be of a length of seven or eight feet and around two feet in height.
During his 1998 interview, Mr Joyce related an interesting story involving a previous neighbour on the lough.
Something had been taking the man's sheep and a dog or fox was suspected. A sheep's carcass was set down by
the lake shore as bait for the nocturnal marauder while the man sat up the hill wrapped in a blanket and armed with
a rifle.
Eventually something was heard approaching the spot where the carcass had been set though nothing could be made
under the moonlight. Hardly able to contain himself after the long cold wait the sheep-herder let off a blast of the rifle
with expectation that a dog or a fox would be sent scampering up the hill. However what happened next was most
unexpected. In response to the shot there was a great splash as something lunged into the water. Nothing could be
seen swimming away so whatever was inspecting the carcass had dived beneath the surface.
The spray it created was far to great for an otter.
Almost two decades would pass before Tom Joyce would again see a horse-eel. In 1980 he was attending an outdoor
summer barbeque at a cottage on Lough Auna when a number of guests noticed a strange swimming animal. Lough
Auna is nearer the west coast of Ireland and is surrounded by boggy marshland, this type of 'run-off' releases Auna's
waters into a western meandering stream that leads to Lough Shanakeever.
During the party held at the cottage near Lough Auna a group of attendees, including Tom Joyce, were called to the
attention of a strange shape coursing across the lake at a 'walking pace'. The object was estimated at five feet in
length and about a foot in height. What puzzled Joyce and his fellow-party-goers, were the unusual projections said
to present along the back of the creature.
Lough Auna.
Some suggested it was an otter carrying young upon its back or a large fish. One of the witnesses -Air Commodore
Kort of the Royal Netherlands Air Force, noted that such an animal would have left a wake as it swam. Whereas, as
he would recall, "the uncanny thing about it was the gliding movement without any disturbance of the water on the
surface." The anomaly was watched until disappearing into a patch of reeds.
This unusual experience is reminiscent of the first reported sighting at Lough Auna. Some time in the 1960's, a local
farmer claimed to have seen a grey animal with a pointed back swimming in the lake. He described it as being about
fifteen feet long, and having a head like a horse and a body like an eel.
He was so frightened by the encounter that he never went near the lake again.
However, Commodore Kort stated that the encounter at the barbeque with these lake aberrations wasn't his first.
In 1969, whilst he and his wife were visiting the area and driving along an unpaved road beside Lough Auna, they
spotted something strange in the water. They stopped their car and watched as a large creature emerged from the
lake and crossed the road in front of them. They estimated its length to be about 18 feet, and noticed that it had
scales, flippers, and a long tail. They also said that it had a horse-like head with large eyes and nostrils, and that
it made a loud snorting sound as it passed by.
Since then, there have been several more sightings of the creature by various witnesses, including bog workers,
fishermen, tourists, and locals near to the small body of water. Some have even claimed to have seen more than
one creature at a time, suggesting that there may be a family or a colony of them living in Lough Auna.
................................
A main theory for these multiple sightings of these evasive creatures in such a remote region around Connemara
is that they utilise the connecting streams man-made drain ditches and reed-ridden marshes to move between
the loughs. But since the majority of observations took place when these animals are said to surface in a lake, is
there any reports of these horse-eels being seen in transit to their chosen bodies of water?
Just a little south-east of Shanakeever Valley is the Derrylea Lough, a mile-long body of water that lies beside the
N59 highway and is laden with fat brown trout. Back in the 1880s, a drought occurred in the Connemara area and
where gushing streams once swelled the boggy conduits between the loughs, now trickling creeks were the only
links.
Derrylea Lough and Lough Crolan.
It was reported that between Derrylea Lough and the nearby smaller Lough Crolan, an alleged horse-eel found itself
obstructed by a large drainage pipe in a culvert and became lodged in the aperture. None of the locals cared to
approach the beast on account of its frightful appearance. It was left to eventually "melt away" inside its cylindrical
chamber and later, the pipe was measured at eighteen inches in diameter and required repairs.
If any remains were discovered was never investigated.
................................
While trying to locate the culvert where the horse-eel supposedly decomposed, a Clifden librarian called Paul Keogh
came upon a story featuring a terrestrial horse-eel. Peter McDonagh is farmer living on Derrylea Lough right outside
of Clifden. A coastal town in County Galway, Clifden is often referred to as 'the Capital of Connemara' and known
for the location where Alcock and Brown crash landed in June 1919 on the first non-stop transatlantic flight.
When asked by the librarian if he was familiar with the accounts of the horse-eels, Mr McDonagh was a little confused
until he realised Paul Keogh was talking about the 'Water Horse'. It was then the farmer recited an experience had by
his father.
On a summer morning sometime during the early 1900s, Peter's father Matty McDonagh was delivering a load of coal
to Clifden. As he was driving his horse-drawn wagon along a three foot tall stone wall separating Lough Derrylea from
the road, a water-horse suddenly leapt up onto the wall. Frightened, Matty immediately sped away but when he looked
back the water-horse had gone back into the lake.
Since the culvert's horse-eel was likened to a "giant eel" it poses a mental challenge in trying to imagine how a large eel
could possibly "jump" up onto a wall. When asked what a water-horse looked like, the response was simple and all too
predictable: like a horse.
(To Be Continued)
RE: The Horse-Eels Of Connemara - EndtheMadnessNow - 01-18-2025
Horse-Eel is new to me. Found a related Fortean blog article on it:
Of giant eels
Quote: Holiday: Did you hear this from your father?
Connelly: From me mother. I used to hear me father talk about it, too, but her in particular always used to talk about it.
Holiday: “Did they ever describe what it looked like?
Connelly: Only just an oversized eel, like, caught in the gully. It couldn’t wriggle itself through. They didn’t bother going near it and it stayed and it just melted away.
Holiday: No bones? They never found any bones?
Connelly: There could be but they just didn’t take much remark of it. Only just that when we were small they’d always keep us away from that lake in particular.
Concluded Holiday: “Further questioning suggested that the creature damaged the culvert during its struggles and this had to be rebuilt. The carcass was so loathsome that no-one would remove it.”
[Source: FW Holiday, The Dragon and the Disc (London: Futura, 1974) pp.52-4]
Here's a longer piece from a Cryptozoology blog: Cressie and Chessie Part II, Giant Eels in Scotland and Ireland
RE: The Horse-Eels Of Connemara - BIAD - 01-18-2025
To assume the bodies of water around Connemara are of a significant size that may reflect thoughts of Loch Ness, would
be an error, many of the Irish loughs are nothing more than pools that draw their volumes from the surrounding mountains
and geographical effects of regular precipitation. Some may be a mile-or-so long, but a few are even smaller and are often
only visited due to peat gathering and livestock-herding by locals.
One such small location of the alleged horse-eels is Lough Nahooin, a paltry mountain lake located in Leagaun and remote
from any major road and buildings. We're so close to the coast now that the single tributary of Nahooin empties straight into
a large inlet that leads to the Atlantic Ocean. In1948, two local men observed a strange object moving around in the lake.
Sadly a description was lacking until 1968 when a family known as the Coynes described an incident involving one of
these aquatic mysteries.
Around seven in the evening on February 22, 1968, farmer and marble quarry worker Stephen Coyne set off to gather dry
peat near Lough Nahooin with his son and the family dog. As he approached the peat bed Stephen spotted a black object
amongst a patch of reeds within the lake. Thinking the wading shape was nothing more than his dog, Stephen whistled
for it to come out of the sodden foliage and then frowned as the Coyne's pet appeared on the bank nearby.
Seeing the object in the reeds, the dog began barking and with the noise, the stationary shape started to move in response
to the baying. Mr Coyne had shot seals and otters on several occasions, but Stephen and his eldest offspring could clearly
see the large animal belonged to neither of these species.
It had a black head rounded "like a kettle" and blended smoothly upon a neck an estimated nine inches to a foot in diameter.
The skin was black, hairless and slick-looking very much in the same fashion as an eel's. Seemingly annoyed at the dog's
continual barking and running about the bank, the creature left the refuge of the reeds and began swimming around Lough
Nahooin as if attempting to confront the loud canine.
Seeing the unknown animal's mouth was agape as if angry, Stephen arrived at the dog's side for support and his
action caused the creature to resume its aimless swimming around the lough. The trio on the bank noticed that
whenever this paddling thing would duck its head underwater, two humps would come into view and a flat tail was
also seen on occasion jutting out near its head.
The creature reportedly seen by the Coynes.
Stephen ordered his son to rush home to fetch a camera, but discovering the device lack film, the boy returned with
his mother and additional siblings to witness the scene. Seven people stood beside the lough and watched the abnormal
sight, but it was Mrs Coyne who detected protrusions on the creature's head that she later called 'horns'. The beast kept
up its patrolling back and forth across the lake for the better part of an hour until finally the Coynes felt they'd seen
enough and returned home.
Stephen Coyne preceded this account with a tale from some time in the fifties, where he and his brother had seen what they
initially believed was a black heifer cow that had fallen into Lough Nahooin. With the animal seemingly rolling over in the
water and showing a white underbelly, the brothers were lost to what they were witnessing. Later, Coyne told a researcher
that that the animal seemed as wide as the investigator's car.
................................
As EndTheMadnessNow refers to in the post above, a chap from around the isolated moors of Lough Nahooin called Thomas
Connelly was interviewed by a Journalist interested in these enigmatic animals of the loughs. Fredrick William Holiday took
it upon himself to investigate the strange tales that seemed to have endured for centuries. Thomas Connelly provided a fair
amount of information that assisted in filling Holiday's book 'The Dragon and the Disc'.
The incident took place in early September of 1969 at around five o'clock in the evening when Tom Connelly was searching
for some sheep in the mountains near Lough Nahooin. Upon nearing the lake, Connelly spotted an object on the shore about
fourteen feet from the water. The prone figure was described as very long and with a width of two-two and a half feet and
of a size larger than a mare's foal. Thomas added that the object was very black and had four stumpy legs.
Noticing the animal was moving down towards the water in a sliding motion Thomas Connelly stated it was "like you slide a
log". The unknown creature then entered the lough with a splash on both sides of it before submerging after a few seconds.
Connelly appended that he was often around the area but had never seen such a thing before, a comment that should rule
out any suggestion of a venturesome seal or a resting otter.
................................
Killarney National Park is south from the above locations in the county of Kerry and generally known for three lakes, Lough
Leane, Muckross Lake (Middle) and Upper Lake. Muckross is seen as the deepest lale in Ireland with depths up to almost
two hundred and fifty feet in parts. The area is abound with spectacular scenic views, glimpses of Red Deer -the largest
herd in Ireland and boulder-tumbling streams.
In a rarely-visited mountain-surrounded valley in the National Park, where sheep are the preponderance of flinty moorland,
there's another lesser-known pool of water named Lough Brin. Again and just like most loughs of this part of the Emerald
Isle, meandering streams eventually spill out into bays and the North Atlantic. Lough Brin is no different and empties at
Blackwater Bridge.
Lough Brin.
Many years ago, an odd tale arose of a twelve year old boy who was surprised to find a strange animal lazing on the shore
of Lough Brin. The puzzling creature was described as black and had four short legs. However no other elucidation came forth.
In an eighteen-ninety-three book by William Richard Le Fanu titled 'Seventy Years of Irish Life', another yarn came to light
regarding a boy who was bitten on the back by a "dreadful wurrum" while he bathed around Lough Brin. The injured and
terrified child arrived home naked and bleeding claiming the beast had hunted him all the way home.
This creature was described as something like the form of a donkey.
(To Be Continued)