There is a river.....

Most people in Ireland have probably grown up near a river . It may have been a small river flowing through a town or a village but it provided a background to their childhood ,
We tend to take for granted the simple pleasures we enjoyed , free of charge , in and around our local river in our youth . It is often said , nowadays , that children in the past were somehow deprived not having TV ,sports clubs , swimming pools ,easy access to transport ...etc..
Remembering my own childhood in Dublin in the forties and early fifties there seemed not to be enough time in the day to do all the things we planned to do .
Summer was , of course , the time when our days were spent in the environs of the River Dodder . We roamed from the Nine Arches in Milltown to , what is now Bushy Park , but was known by us as Shaws Wood . Four or five or six of us , with a vague plan in mind of which area we would travel to , all above areas being within easy walking distance for ten or eleven-year-olds ,exploring , building 'dams' , fishing , playing football , even occasionally , finding time to swim , becoming our heroes -of the-day ,Tarzan , Jungle Jim , The Ghost Who Walks , Lash La Rue (that last being a cowboy , not a sado-masocistic-female-impersonator.) The Dodder was there all the time , always moving and always staying in the same place .
Each part of the River had its own attractions , one place was perfect for fishing for 'pinkeens' , minnow , sticklebacks , using our 'ingenious ' method of a disused wine-bottle ,leaving the cork in and knocking out the 'dimple' in the bottom...attach a string...leave as long as you wish in the sandy bottom of the river and hey-presto... the little fish swim in , cannot find their way out again through the 'dimple'....gotcha.... and then we carried them home in a jam-jar.
The deepest part , but still not VERY deep , was at Orwell Bridge , the bravest ones would actually jump off the parapet shouting something like 'GERONIMO ' and plunge into the depts , or the darkest part where a small stream flowed from under the road , this was the place for catching the lobster's freshwater cousin....creepy crayfish.
But there was another river we had seen when being treated to a visit to the City .The Liffey.Standing on Aston's Quay waiting for the bus to take us home following a Christmas Shopping trip , with our backs to the quay wall , collars turned up to stave off some of the sleet whipping in off the water , or sitting upstairs on the bus looking at the river feeling that we were moving and the Liffey was static .
The Liffey became as familiar to us as the Dodder , a familiar acquaintence if not quite a friend.As we grew older our visits to the Dodder decreased and our familiarity with the Liffey increased . The first-run cinemas were our goal , we could'nt wait for the new films to make their way to our local , it could take years;, stage shows , variety , gaming machines all became our attractions .
We eventually left Dublin and saw other rivers ,the Shannon was probably the first outside of our native city , not really homely , more like the sea in parts , the Lee of course . Now there is a river about which a lovely song was written , the words of whice are GUARENTEED to bring tears to the eyes of grown men and not just Corkmen...."where we sported and played neath' her green leafy shade ....etc"
I cannot think of a song about the Liffey , but she has been personified by James Joyce as Anna Livia Plura Bella , unfortunatly , in the not too distant past , some genius got the brilliant idea of trying to represent Anna in what was referred to as a modern sculpture , with long hair reclining in a fountain , soon to become 'dubbed' by the native Dubliners "The Floozie in the Jacuzzi " , she 's gone now unfortunatly not "gone before the're up"The flamboyant Oliver St.John Gogarty once presented Anna Livia with two swans as a gift for saving his life when captured by the IRA ,(its a long story .... ask Ulick O'Connor ). Incidentally , Dubliners have a tendancy to 'dub' all their 'new' bronze statues with typical Dublinese names , for example Molly Malone , with her wheelbarrow at the bottom of Grafton St. was renamed 'The Tart with the Cart',a statue of James Joyce himself on Nth.Earl St. became known as 'the Pratt with the Hat ' or even more irreverently 'the P..ck with the Stick'..

Of course we have now seen other rivers outside Ireland . We know these from our history and geography books....the Thames in London , familiar to us from Dickens and all the books and films since , the Hudson in New York , not really friendly , probably put in its place by all those skyscrapers , the Seine in Paris we have met but don't know at all , it must be the language barrier.., I even dipped my toes in the Rio Grande , another disappointment. , after all the westerns I'd seen , all I'd heard and read about this mighty river , I was easily able to toss a stone from Texas into Mexico.
Presently I find myself back near my old friend the River Liffey , a younger version , between Celbridge and Leixlip and she is being promised a facelift , and I am getting to know thr River Barrow as it flows along through Athy........

Finally on pollution....I believe that in spite of lazy careless farming ,greedy developers , incompetant planners , and dishonest politicians we are beginning to row back the tide of pollution in our rivers and streams and , in fairness , the new green politics is playing a major part in making us aware of the necessity of keeping our environment pure.....