Donald Hickey: A life of fishing on Shannon

“ALL before me have been boatmen and fishermen, so it’s heritage really.” The words of Harry Blackwell whose family have been pilots guiding ships up the River Shannon and traditional salmon fishermen in Limerick for generations. They were also farmers on Greenish Island.

The stories of such families who earned their living from fishing, mainly salmon, in the Shannon from the city to the estuary have been captured in a new film, The Estuary.