TIMMY LYNCH

The day Jaws was caught on The Back of the Strand

GROWING up in Kanturk during the 50’s and 60’s, before the arrival of television, was a great time because your playground was only limited by the limits of your imagination.

You just looked around and you were surrounded by everything needed to fulfill your dreams, from Croke Park in which to play an All-Ireland Final to The Old Court to stage any kind of a battle (depending on what was shown at the cinema that week), to Donovans Hill where many a different game was played and, of course, Kanturk was blessed by not alone having a river but having three rivers, The Allow, The Dallow and the Brogeen, and nothing draws a young person to play like water.

We had the weir where we were able to swim during the warm Summer days. We could catch collies (small fish) in our jam jars or just frolic around in the water.

We had what we called the ‘Back of the Strand’ (this was the river bank at the back of Strand Street). This was our entry to the river in the middle of town and could be viewed from the town bridge.

During the Summer the level of the water would be very low due to the width of the river where the Allow and the Dallow met in the centre of the town, so low that sometimes the men working at the creamery would be able to cross the river in their shoes going home to St Theresa’s Place for their lunch.

When the water was low like this the young boys of Strand Street and Bluepool (numbering up to between 30 and 40) would decide to build an island. This could take days to build and would consist of collecting all the loose stones around the riverbed and piling them into a pile and when the stones would be above the water level and evened out there would be a layer of river weed layered across the stones. The island could be as big as, or as small, depending on the size of the work crew.

All work crews, armies, gangs or gatherings of people need to have a leader and we had one who was a larger than life character which we called Gunga Din. Gunga Din was great warrior, or maybe not, in the battles in India long ago. We all looked up to our leader and he could do nothing wrong, so we would follow him wherever he went and we would always do whatever he would say to do.

One year, we had built an island that was better than we had built for many a year and this was a perfect backdrop for what was to transpire over the next few days.

It was a Sunday morning, which guaranteed the crowd to witness the spectacle that was to occur on that morning. Sometime before eleven o’clock, as the people were making their way home from the ten o’clock mass, the word went out that nobody should go into the river as something strange was seen in the river and, sure enough, on inspection something like a fin was seen breaking the surface of the water.

Our hero, Gunga Din, said he would enter the water to investigate.

The crowd was gathering and the excitement was growing.

Gunga Din went in to the water armed with a two prong pike (used by farmers to save hay), and he went on to the island to survey the surroundings. He jumped into the water near where the fin was seen and with one swoop with the pike he lunged forward and as he lifted the pike all the gathering left out cry because, sure enough, Gunga Din had caught a shark, which be proudly held high as it threshed about on the end of the pike.

He laid the shark out on the island for all to see.

He then said he had better check to see if the water was safe for all of the young people to go into. He went back in and after a while the excitement was growing again as the splashing of water grew louder and louder. After a big battle Gunga Din once again held the pike aloft to the great excitement of the crowd, which had now apparently grown.

However, this time on the end of the pike not another shark but a conger eel. The eel put up a great fight but it was not good enough for our hero Gunga Din.

He finally landed the conger eel, which was about four feet or longer, onto the island beside the shark for all to see.

This is how heroes are created. Later it was learned that Gunga Din had been taken deep sea fishing to Kinsale with some Yanks that were on holiday in Kanturk and that he was given the small shark and eel to take home to show to his friends. Gunga was one not to let a chance go by so he staged the big incident by tying the shark and eel by fishing gut to a steak in the river. When the word was spread about the sightings in the river the scene was set for our hero to jump in to action.

He was the saviour of Kanturk, who else would jump into shark infested waters armed only with a two pronged pike, putting his life at risk. He was my hero then and he is still my biggest hero.