Rivers of Munster: River Bride brings wildlife 'right up into Cork village'
Chris Moody of Save Our Bride Otters performing a 'kick-test' of the riverbed to check the water quality in the River Bride. Picture: Larry Cummins
The Bride is a small river running through the Northside of Cork City, so small it can be hard to find. And, says Chris Moody, equally hard to name.
“It depends on who you talk to when it comes to the name of the river, or even when the river becomes the Bride.
“The Office of Public Works (OPW) says the Bride rises in the townland of Ballycannon, near Killeens. But if you talk to people who live near the Glenamought — which is a tributary of the Bride — they’ll also refer to that as the Bride.
"I’m referring here to the Murphy’s Rock area, and some of those people are quite insistent on calling it the Bride, so you have to tread a little carefully.
“That rises up in the hills in the area of Whitechurch, and that’s probably a wilder section of river up to the point where it joins the North Point Business Park.”
Moody, a long-time campaigner for the Bride’s environment and part of the community group Save Our Bride Otters, points out that a general lack of visibility is no help to the river’s advocates.
“The stretch by Orchard Court is effectively cut off by the N20 and hidden by a private housing estate,” says Moody.
“Years ago there was talk of a walkway going all the way out to the upper reaches of the Bride, but the stretch that was cut off was effectively left to become a dumping ground.
“If you look at Blackpool Retail Park, there’s a small part of the river which flows through it — near the cinema side — and that’s well-maintained.
"It’s probably not great for wildlife in the sense that there’s not too much cover, though I’ve seen otters there, as well as heron and trout. But it’s one place where people can actually see the river.
“But there are no signs to tell people about the river. You wouldn’t even know what the name of the river is.
"Recently the Blackpool Tidy Towns committee asked me to put some pictures together for a sign, and that tells people what animals and birds can be found in the river. That helps, because it tells people there’s life in the river.”
The Bride wasn’t always hard to find. It was important to developing the area’s economy, for instance, particularly the industrial expansion of Blackpool in previous centuries.
“Going back to the 1700s, 1800s there would have been mill streams along that stretch to power local industries, for instance.
“So in terms of the river being central to the area, it was certainly important in terms of providing power for those industries in the form of those mill wheels, while it also provided water, obviously. Until relatively recently, in fact, the Sunbeam textile factory nearby also relied on that water supply.
“It was central in other ways also. When I first started researching the river and putting material online, a lot of people got in touch to recall how they’d spent their childhoods playing in the river, mentioning what they called Ponds 1, 2 and 3.
“Two of those ponds are gone now, but there’s one still roughly in the same area — a deep pool near the North Point Business Park.
And I’ve seen kids swimming in that one — a couple of summers ago a few of them were down there with a lilo, all the gear — so it’s still used, even though it doesn’t happen that often.”
The Bride is well used by birds, fish, and animals as well. Moody describes it as “a crucial wildlife movement corridor,” even though the area is quite urbanised.
“The wildlife comes right up to and into Blackpool village — we’ve documented otters coming through the village, there have been kingfishers documented here, those are all features of the river.
“I’ve also seen kids fishing in the river, so that’s another way the river is used. Now, whether the kids are supposed to be fishing, according to the fisheries rules, I don’t know, but kids use it for that purpose, as well as the occasional adult.
"There are plenty of brown trout in the river, certainly.”
Despite the fact that long stretches of the river can’t be seen, it’s cherished locally as an amenity, he adds.
“Up in the Glenamought section it’s very much appreciated as a walkway, an amenity. People stroll there, they bring their dogs for walks there, and part of that may be because it’s slightly ‘wilder’ there in terms of the environment.
“I love the urban side of it — the river is at the bottom of my garden so I can hear it, it’s a constant audible presence, and because I can hear it running past I can also tell what’s going on with it.
"Whether the river is running fast or slow, all of those different sounds are audible. I know plenty of other people in Blackpool who love having the river so near at hand.”
The challenges faced by the Bride? Littering and dumping are obvious issues, but pollution is more insidious.
“It’s terribly littered, there’s no denying that — some people throw their rubbish directly into it, others throw rubbish on the banks of the river, while the wind can also blow rubbish into the river. If I could tackle anything it’d be the litter.
“In terms of the environment, the river’s used for drainage, which is the same for all rivers in urban areas — in effect the drainage always leads to the local river, so the run-off from roads, from driveways lead to the river, as does sewage overflows.
“The number one point to make — unpopular though that may be — is the nutrient-rich agricultural run-off. The nitrates entering the river lower the oxygen levels in the water, which has an impact according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
“The secondary causes are pollution in terms of drains and sewer overflows. Dumping rubbish in the river, terrible though that is, is not a major cause of pollution unless it’s chemical.
“If you follow the EPA’s latest reports, the quality of our water generally is declining year on year, so something has to happen or our rivers will end up in the same state you’ll find in other parts of the world.
"And not too far away either, if you look at the colour of Lough Neagh. Something will have to happen and that solution will not be popular.”
Moody points out that the OPW plans for flood relief in the area are not good news for the Bride.
“It’s an amenity and has value for Blackpool. If it’s covered over, that’s the end of it. The OPW wants to cover it over for flood relief, but that kind of thinking is completely outdated.”
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