The Dutch Angling journalist Jan Schreiner is widely regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20^th century. He wrote over 50 books about all kinds of angling and contributed to several angling magazines. After World War II he started writing about the joys and pleasure of fishing, a pastime up to then only known for food supply reasons. Most importantly, his writings lay the foundations for a general belief and acceptance that catch-and-release fishing is a very important aspect, necessary to protect our sport, given the increased pressure of pollution, over fishing etc…

Jan Schreiner was a frequent visitor to the island of Ireland. He loved the country and spent many weeks fishing for salmon, trout, pike, perch, tench, bream etc. He was, and still is, well known, in the Foxford area in particular. In 1973 he wrote "Sport fishing in Ireland", another great example of his fabulous and highly poetic writing style. Yet, when it came to the management of Irish waters, he could be very critical. In this book he spends some time explaining the attitude of the Irish fisheries towards pike. He didn’t give them many compliments…Probably the single most important statement in this context was the following : " It would be very interesting if someone someday would dig into all the accepted facts which, despite their very poor foundations, are still generally accepted as truths." A clear allusion to the theories held on by the Irish Fisheries that pike is not a native species and has to be culled on trout waters.

During the gillnetting campaign carried out by the Western Regional Fisheries Board on Loughs Mask, Corrib and Carra in winter 98 and spring 99 a passionate debate took place in the local and national press. One contributor wrote the following in one of his letters : "…pike, a piscovore whose Irish name is ‘Gaill Eisc’ or foreign fish…should therefore be removed from these lakes…" A short while later I was told by an Irish speaking person living in the Gealtacht that this was incorrect since the Irish for pike was ‘liús’.

Since then, my good friend Shane Garrett and I, together with the help of numerous very kind and helpful people, have gone through piles of information and documents, in order to puzzle together the history of Irish pike. We have also focused on arguments brought forward by Irish Fisheries Scientists claiming that pike are of recent introduction. More than one year later and although our work is far from finished, we would like to share our finds, to date, with the interested reader. Indeed, we came across a number of very interesting references.

Let’s first of all solve the "gaill iasc – liús" problem. Open any Irish dictionary and you’ll see pike being translated as liús. Some dictionaries however mention gaill iasc as well. It appears that gaill iasc is a literary coinage, a creation from the 17^th or 18th century. The original word for pike, liús, is much older. Although it is impossible to pinpoint exactly when it was first used it appears that liús dates from somewhere between the 13^th and the 15^th century, indicating that pike could very well have been on this island much longer than we were always led to believe…

The Irish Fisheries have always seen the gaill iasc theory as a solid base to prove their introduction theory. They have scaled down this theory to the belief that gaill iasc is the Irish word for pike used in some parts of West Mayo. Incorrect again, I’m afraid. In The Irish naturalists Journal, Volume 8, 1942-46, an article "Local names of Irish Fishes" by G.P. Farran is published which mentions Liús for Mayo. Not a mention of gaill iasc. Together with this argument it is often said that pike cannot be native because there are lakes where pike are absent. It appears to me that it is very difficult to defend this argument. There are numerous lakes where no trout or salmon can be found but do we see them therefore as introduced?

Besides; to say that gaill iasc means foreign fish is in itself all too simplistic and incomplete. Whilst iasc means undoubtedly fish, gaill can mean foreign but can also mean "foreigners-" or "Gaul" or "Norseman". The word gaill iasc therefore does not prove at all that pike is an introduced fish species.

Another argument of the introduction theory is that there is no old Irish name for pike. Unlike for species like salmon and trout which both have old Irish names. Sounds solid at first sight but doesn’t make sense either I’m afraid. Let’s give our salty friend the mackerel a thought. Or the cod maybe. I think everyone will agree that these are native species to the Irish coasts. Yet, they have no old Irish names! One could also look at our feathered friends and notice that a bird like the partridge has no old Irish name, yet is native to this country. In other words, the fact that pike has no old Irish name does not prove anything. Surely not that it is introduced.

Our "find" of the word Liús has proven very important since. The word keeps coming back in different publications and references and it will prove to be very significant indeed as these series of the highly interesting journeys along the history of Irish pike unfolds.

So far for the introduction. In the next article we bring Dr. Went upon stage, and then it gets really interesting!

Text : Frank Barbé and Shane Garrett