School: Bánóg (roll number 7222)
- Location:
- Banoge, Co. Limerick
- Teacher: Pádraig Ó Riordáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0506, Page 220
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- I was in a certain house in the village of broom, one night, and fell into conversation with Tim Hederman (Manister). Tim is, by the way, a fisherman during his spare time. Conversation was local for a time, when suddenly, Tim, in a tone commanding the whole room, said "I gave up fishing a rising trout today to watch what I never saw before, a king fisher stalking his prey. There was a good pound and a half trout going well in the ripple behind the stepping stones and I was just letting out my line behind him, when I saw a funny ball of colour in the air about thirty yards above me. For a second I could not know what it was; it was a kingfisher hovering about 4' above the water. How wings were moving so quickly that he made that but a blub of colour against the whitethorn behind him. I can't compare the quickness with which his wings moved, while his body was perfectly stationary, to anything but the revolutions of the fly wheel of a sparator. It took him, I don't know how long, for I was that interested I didn't mind or heed time, but I'd say he was five minutes surely, before he fell like a store, a little slanting, and the next record he was flying down within a rod's length of me, are a glorious fine minnow across his beak. I saw him do it three times in an house, and each time he passed me, he was back in less than a minute for his next load, so his nest is not far from the stepping stones.
