We always knew Fungie would go some day... but we never expected it
FAREWELL TO THE FRIENDLIEST DOLPHIN TO GRACE OUR SHORES
Dingle residents tell TV show of their encounters with sea mammal
DINGLE folk have opened up about their unique relationship with dolphin Fungie who arrived in the picture postcard town as mysteriously as he disappeared.
A documentary presented by Baz Ashmawy is a love letter to the wild sea mammal who brought joy, prosperity, played matchmaker and even saved the life of a local sailor.
The celebrity dolphin was singularly responsible for an entire tourism industry driven by 16 boats which brought millions to the harbour to catch a glimpse of the creature who loved humans.
In the wake of his sudden departure last October, the Kerry residents have spoken of their deep sense of loss in the poignant film.
Harbour resident Veronica Flannery said: “It’s an emptiness. It’s like a family member, we always knew he would go some day but you never expected it to come.”
Diver John O’connor and his daughter were the first locals to encounter the 14ft mammal who was written into the Guinness Book Of Records as the longest living solitary dolphin on the planet.
He said: “It was in 1983, she was only 14 at that stage. And we’d go all the way back to the point and on our way back, on this occasion, Fungie joined us.
“He just swam along nice and gently beside us and it was absolutely magic. My best experience with him was on a night dive.
“The moon was shining and it was phosphorescence all over the place. And sure enough who arrived only Fungie.
“He would go up to the surface, back down and there would be another trail of phosphoresce. It was absolutely spectacular.
“It was like something you’d see in the Disney film.”
In Fungie’s Kingdom, his scuba diving partner Ronnie Fitzgibbon – who often wrote poems about the dolphin – remembers the first day Fungie allowed the divers to touch him.
He said: “For two years we were swimming along trying to touch him every time and no matter how near you went to him he just backed away and then it happened one day, he stayed and that was the start, it was unreal.
“If you tickled him under the chin, he’d turn the head and you’d do the other side and he liked to be touched on the nose.
He didn’t like anyone hanging on to his dorsal fin.” Ronnie also told how Funghie occasionally came up to the boat with his own offering, He said: “The first time he came with a fish I nearly died with the fright and he threw a lot of fish into the boat, but he never threw a salmon, it was always an aul pollack. “You could see that cheeky smile on his face.” One theory about the dolphin’s appearance was he might have come from the Soviet Union. Ronnie said: “One story is he was with the Russian navy and the Cold War finished and they let him go and he made his way over here.”
The owner of the smallest record shop in Ireland Mazz O’flaherty had her own joyful memories of an up- close encounter with the enormous mammal during a boat trip. She said: “I looked to the right and about two feet away from me there was my man, Fungie, looking at me smiling. The next thing, he jumps over the boat on to the other side. “I nearly fell in after him, I nearly had a heart attack and that is as true as I’m standing here. “Fungie was a legend, he was known worldwide. “He was in the Guinness Book of Records.” One Dingle- residing couple, Suzanne and Nick, credit the dolphin with bringing them together as Suzanne moved from Dublin and Nick moved from England after becoming hooked on swimming with the dolphin.
Nick said: “As our kids would say, they wouldn’t be here only for Fungie because we met through the dolphin. I came here 25 years or so ago.”
Around the same time, Dubliner Suzanne went out on one of the Fungie boats and remembers thinking “it was the most phenomenal thing I had ever seen”.
She added: “I met Nick, they were a great gang of people swimming with Fungie at the time, I still can’t really put it into words. That was it, I wasn’t going anywhere.” Nick said: “There
He was quite happy there as long as he had food and partnership KEVIN FLANNERY DINGLE OCEANWORLD DIRECTOR
14ft How long Fungie the dolphin measured from nose to tail
37 years is how long Fungie lived off the Kerry coast
were days you’d look out into the harbour and he’d come storming up.
“He would come hydroplaning in on the surface, full speed and next minute he’d do this handbrake turn in front of you, it did bond us together”.
The couple both describe a particularly remarkable encounter with the dolphin in the harbour.
Nick said: “Fungie leapt over me, down between us, leapt up the other side down over Suzanne and was doing this figure of eight between us, over and over, intertwining us.”
When they got out of the water they were stopped by a lady on the beach.
Suzanne revealed: “She said, ‘do you not realise Fungie has just married you’.”
Dingle Oceanworld director Kevin Flannery said the mammal was responsible for turning the town into a tourist hotspot.
He added: “You would see this fabulous creature, this very large creature in the wild coming up towards you, for life it lives with you.
“He was quite happy there as long as he had food and partnership.
Fishermen realised you could make an income from going to see these instead of killing them, and you finished up with 16 vessels from a single dolphin.
“It’s no joke to say millions of people have gone down to see him down through the years.
“He gave us 37 good years, you can’t do any more than that. We had the Fungie years like we had the Italia ’90 years.” And retired sailor John Francis Brosnan credits the dolphin with helping to save his life. He said: “I am here today because of him. A good few years ago now, I was on a waiting list with my heart as I didn’t have proper insurance.
“A week later this French man came to Ireland, I just happened to meet him, and he asked me where the beach was and I said, ‘Get in my car and I’ll show you a few beaches’.
“He noticed my colour and he asked if I was all right and I said I was on a waiting list for my heart. He said, ‘ I’m a cardiologist’. He came for one day to Dingle to swim with Fungie and said, ‘I want you on the next plane, I’ll fix our heart’.” “Fungie is always there”, John said, while touching his heart.
■ Fungie ’s Kingdom is on RTE One tomorrow at 7.30pm.
WILL we ever see the like of Fungie the dolphin on our shores again?
The Dingle community are still in mourning for the magestic mammal, as an RTE documentary to air tonight shows.
And who can blame them? He was flippin’ brilliant.