Dobhar-ch�
Ireland is home to a possibly cryptozoological animal called,
variously, dobhar-ch�, dobarcu, or dhuragoo. Writing in
1990, Dr. D�ith� � h�g�in called it the "king otter", and said that in
addition to being larger than common otters, it was pure white with black ear-tips and a
black cross on its back.
In 1896, Miss L.A. Walkington wrote in the Journal of the Royal Society of
Antiquaries of Ireland of a legend she had heard in Bundoran, County
Leitrim, of a creature called a dhuragoo, which she said was "half wolf-dog,
half-fish". Some witnesses, she said, likened it to an "enormous
sea-otter". A few months later, H. Chichester Hart responded to Miss
Walkington's letter, and said that he had heard in Ballyshannon, Leitrim, of a creature
called the dorraghow, which was said to be the King of all the Lakes, and Father
of all the Otters. Hart said it was "as big as five or six otters".
Richard Muirhead of Wiltshire, England, has uncovered a poem, possibly dating from around
1920, called The Dobhar-ch� of Glenade. The poem tells the story of a
woman named Grace Connolly, who was found dead by a lake along with her killer, a
Dobhar-ch�. Her husband, a man named McGloughlan, killed the animal but soon found
that he had to deal with the king otter's mate, which he killed near Castlegarden Hill.
The story is corroborated by a gravestone found in the Conbna�l
Cemetery in Drummans, Leitrim, and another near Kinlough, Leitrim. The Kinlough
Stone is more interesting for the fact that it depicts the Dobhar-ch�. Patrick Tohall,
writing in an article appearing in the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland,
says that the stone is dated September 24, 1722, a time which fits in well with the
account of Connolly's death. He describes the creature as being very doglike, with a
head suggesting an otter.
Furthermore, the gravestone is that of Grace Con, who it says was the wife of Ter
MacLoghlin. Tohall also states that, although the Dobhar-ch� seems very otter-like, the
word often used for otter is mada uisge.
An earlier description of the Dobhar-ch� appears in A Description of West
Connaught (1684), by Roderick O'Flaherty. This story, originating from
the area of Lough Mask, is recounted:
There is one rarity more, which we may term the Irish crocodile, whereof one, as yet living, about ten years ago had sad experience. The man was passing the shore just by the waterside, and spyed far off the head of a beast swimming, which he took to be an otter, and took no more notice of it; but the beast it seems lifted up his head, to discern whereabouts the man was; then diving swam under the water till he struck ground: whereupon he run out of the water suddenly and took the man by the elbow whereby the man stooped down, and the beast fastened his teeth in his pate, and dragged him into the water; where the man took hold of a stone by chance in his way, and calling to mind he had a knife in his jacket, took it out and gave a thrust of it to the beast, which thereupon got away from him into the lake. The water about him was all bloody, whether from the beast's blood, or his own, or from both he knows not. It was the pitch of an ordinary greyhound, of a black slimey skin, without hair as he imagines. Old men acquainted with the lake do tell there is such a beast in it, and that a stout fellow with a wolf dog along with him met the like there once; which after a long struggling went away in spite of the man and his dog, and was a long time after found rotten in a rocky cave of the lake when the waters decreased. The like they say is seen in other lakes in Ireland, they call it doyarchu, i.e. water-dog, or anchu which is the same.
SHUKER, Dr. Karl P.N.
1995
Menagerie of Mystery. Strange 10
(Fall). pp. 28-33, 48-49.