Wild Salmon Day - June st

Today is Wild Salmon Day, and we are raising the flag for a species that once shaped life and livelihoods along the River Blackwater in Munster.

In the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, spring, summer and autumn at Ballyvolane were defined by salmon anglers travelling here to fish the Blackwater. It was a vibrant part of rural tourism, supporting accommodation providers, ghillies, pubs, restaurants and local communities.

Today, that angling tourism has all but disappeared. Wild Atlantic salmon, once so abundant and so deeply woven into Irish folklore that it appeared on the old 10p coin, are now in crisis. In 2025, the numbers returning to our rivers to spawn were the lowest in recorded history.

There are many contributing factors: climate change, rising sea temperatures, reduced zooplankton energy, overfishing, predation, poor river management, and the impact of fish farming - from sea lice to escaped farmed salmon weakening wild genetics.

But what is most difficult to accept is the lack of urgency in protecting one of Ireland’s most iconic species.

The collapse of wild salmon is not only an environmental tragedy. It is a cultural, economic and rural tragedy too.

To me, wild salmon mean memory, livelihood, folklore and loss. They mean the River Blackwater as it once was: alive with anglers, stories and seasonal rituals, sustaining local businesses and rural communities. Above all, they mean responsibility - to speak up before this iconic species disappears from Irish rivers, and from Irish identity, forever.