Making a splash on the Shannon

WE’VE been running out of national superlatives here in Ireland in recent years: we’re no longer the richest/fastest-growing/youngest/friendliest and more island, ever since our economic bubble inflated and burst its banks.

We’re back to our native resources, our native resourcefulness too, our rivers still run free — and we still have the longest river in the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. Let’s celebrate the Shannon.

It has just been celebrated, in book form, by an ‘unlikely’ writer too. “Until I was asked to do a book on the Shannon, I’d only driven over it on bridges,” admits the suddenly-immersed scientist and zoologist, Aiveen Cooper.