River Laune – Killorglin's salmon river

In 1867 a fisherman working the Laune at Killorglin hooked what he took for a salmon, or maybe a dropped gun, and hauled up an 11th-century bishop’s crozier. The River Laune Crozier is early medieval, and it came out of a river that had already been carrying traffic and lore for a thousand years. The Laune (Irish: An Leamhain, from Old Irish leaṁan, “elm”) drains Lough Leane, the lowest of the Lakes of Killarney, and runs 23 km through Beaufort and Killorglin to Castlemaine Harbour and the Atlantic.

Geography and flow

The Laune’s catchment covers roughly 829 km², draining the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks through a set of fast tributaries: the River Loe from the Gap of Dunloe, the Gaddagh from the heart of the Reeks, and the Cottoners from their western slopes. With an average discharge of 43 m³/s it keeps a brisk, oxygen-rich current year-round, over a bed of shallow riffles and deeper pools. That flow rises fast after rain, and the banks turn slick, so the calmest, clearest water is usually early in the morning.

The embankments

The lower valley owes its shape to a single piece of early engineering. Between 1811 and 1812 the civil engineer Alexander Nimmo surveyed and mapped over 76,000 acres of low ground here for the Bogs Commission, and more than 40 km of stone-and-earth embankments went up to hold back the tide from the flats around Castlemaine Harbour. The banks run from Tullig near Cromane to Killorglin, along the Maine River and around the north side of the harbour, standing anywhere from 1 m to over 5 m high, with sluice gates set into them. Much of the original stonework survives, and both the Killorglin river bank walk and the Astellas river bank walk, downstream of the Metal Bridge, follow it.

Killorglin’s County Bridge and river art

Killorglin’s County Bridge, finished in 1885, replaced an older wooden crossing that kept vanishing under the spring tides. It was built from local limestone carted from Steelroe Quarries about a kilometre off, with eight hand-shaped arches, each 15.24 m, over a total length of 123 m. It is now a protected structure, and the best free half-hour on the river is spent on and around it.

At the eastern end, two public artworks frame the bank. The Puck Statue and its lawn, Faiche Rí Na Phoic, went up in 2001 for the Killorglin Millennium, honouring the town’s Puck Fair. In 2010 the Puck Poets’ Corner was added, carrying verses from local writers going back to 1876, among them Sigerson Clifford. The fair itself runs 10 to 12 August every year and has documented roots in the early 17th century, close to 400 years of it: a wild mountain goat is caught, crowned King Puck, and set above the town for three days of trading, music and horse-dealing.

Angling

The Laune is a registered salmon river, with runs of wild brown trout and Atlantic salmon and the occasional pearl fish, especially along the Beaufort section. April to September brings the best water and the best of the fishing. All legal angling methods are allowed, subject to local fishery rules; bank fishing is popular at Laune Bridge and the Beaufort stretch. Permits come from tackle dealers in Killarney and Killorglin (see launeanglers.com), and prices at the time of writing run:

The honest caveat: permits get dearer and harder to come by in August and September, the two months everyone wants, so sort one before you travel rather than on the day. For current season dates and river conditions, check with the local tackle shops or Inland Fisheries Ireland at fishinginireland.info.

Walking

On foot is how most people take the Laune in. The paths near the County Bridge and the Metal Bridge are level and suit families and less mobile visitors, while the longer embankment walks open out to the Reeks and the engineered banks. A River Laune Blueway, combining a paddling trail with land routes for walkers and cyclists, has been floated for the stretch from Lough Leane through Killorglin to Ballykissane Pier, but it remains at the feasibility stage; for now, walking is the way to do it.