The Story of the Lough Ree Monster

Drawn by Athlone artist, Joe Moore during the summer of the monster in Athlone, in 1960

 

 

On May 18, 1960, Father Richard Quigly, Father Matthew Burke and Father Daniel Murray were enjoying a peaceful day of fishing on the shores of Lough Ree outside Athlone, Ireland when one of the men noticed an unusual object roughly 100 yards away. According to the men the creature’s length from the end of the coil to its head was 6 feet and roughly18 inches of head and neck appeared out of the water. The head and neck were narrow in comparison to the thickness of a good sized salmon and it received its propulsion from a source they could not see under the water.

The testimony of these three clergy men was more than enough to give credibility to the existence of the Lough Ree Monster and local newspapers soon picked up on the story.
"There were two sections above the water; a forward section of uniform girth, stretching quite straight out of the water and inclined at the plane of the surface at about 30 °, in length about 18-24 inches. The diameter of this long leading section we would estimate to be about 4 inches. At its extremity which we took to be a serpent-like head, it tapered rather abruptly to a point.
Between the leading and the following sections of this creature, there intervened about two feet of water. The second section seemed to us to be a tight, roughly semi-circular loop. This portion could have been a hump or a large knob on the back of a large body under the surface that was being propelled by flippers. As to the dimensions of this section, if a loop we should say the girth of a large fifteen pound salmon; if however, a round hump. . . we should put its base at about 18 inches. . . We would estimate the overall length to the two visible sections, measured along the surface from tip of snout to end of hump, at about 6 feet.
The movement along the water was steady. There was no apparent disturbance of the surface, so that propulsion seemed to come from a well-submerged portion of the creature. There was no undulation of its body above the water. It was cruising at a very leisurely speed, and was apparently unconcerned about our presence. We watched it moving along the surface for a period of two or three minutes in a north-easterly direction. It was going towards the shore; then it submerged gradually rather than dived, and disappeared from view completely. Another couple of minutes later it reappeared still following the same course. . . It reached a point 30 yards offshore, where it submerged and we saw it no more…"

although many other folk may also have spotted The Lough Ree Monster.......