The Trout in the Big River Padraic Ó Conaire
(translated from the Irish by David Marcus)

Padraic O Conaire was born in County Galway in 1883. He gave up a job in the British civil service to travel the roads of Ireland with a donkey and cart and to write only in Irish. The author of a novel, a play and many short stories, there is a statue of him by Albert Power in Eyr Square, Galway. He died in 1928.

I would know that trout from any other that ever twisted himself in a stream. He has a bulk far greater than most of his relations and the appearance that many of them have not. And the sense of him! The seven parishfuls of fishermen have been troubled and tortured by him for years; every sort of bait that was ever put on a hook, they have tried it - that brazen trout just stretches his pointed snout above the stones where he lives, his tail dancing mockingly, and away with him at his ease.
You would see him under you in the sparkling water, and he not caring a fig for you or your bait however tasty. And wouldn't you just burst with rage to watch him meandering up to the surface and grabbing a little fly the very identical colour and cast as the one on your hook! 'Tis many a curse he wreaked from a fisherman in his time.

Did you tell me you have a wish to go on his trail, my good trout-fisher? I'll put you right: first, go to Armagh; then, seek out any trout-fisher in that city. Tell him that you heard of The Trout and that you are determined not to leave the place until you have him in your bag. Oh what a welcome you'll get! You'll be told amazing stories about the fishermen who came from far-off lands to entice The Trout in the Big River. You'll be introduced to every person in the neighbourhood who ever thought of catching The Trout. You'll make pals with the gawky youngster and a firm friendship with the grey old man. Every one of them will show you his fishing-tackle, hook, line, and sinker. He'll give you an account of The Trout, of his girth, of his weight, of his cuteness - ah, I bet you you'll hear stories about The Trout in the Big River that will whack any fishing story in the book....

Sure didn't a young fellow come from Scotland once and take a solemn vow that he would not leave the bank of the river till he'd have The Trout? The poor misguided youth! He did not realize what brains that fish had in his head!

He was there all spring. He had a little log-hut on the bank and food was brought to him every day from the city. The first of summer came. Himself and The Trout got better acquainted. During the long bright summer the man and the fish kept each other company; they even got familiar; until the young man knew what The Trout would do and The Trout knew what the young man would do....

Someone told me that it wasn't fishing the fellow was at all but composing poetry; but who would believe a word from a person who never even put a piece of bait on a hook? But the place where The Trout lived would draw poetry out of the man who had any strain of it in him at all.

Lustrous water rushing down a slope over shapely green stones. A dark gloomy pool beneath a towering rock. The surface a lovely mirror for every cloud and bird that scuds across the sky. A bank on each side of it rising smoothly from the water and many-coloured flowers growing there.

And as for the birds round about! 'Tis said that there is not any other place in Ireland where you would see more swallows than beside this pool - hundreds and hundreds sporting and gambolling for themselves over the black water until nightfall.

Amongst the bushes there in the face of summer you would hear the chatter and chirp of every kind of bird! 'Tis there is held the Annual Convention of the Birds of Ireland, and they make as much noise as any other convention: I don't know that there is not as much sense in their noise as well - anyway, if there is not, at least it is sweeter.

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