{"id":719965,"date":"2026-07-30T23:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T23:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/719965\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T23:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T23:42:11","slug":"our-river-is-dying-locals-warn-of-strain-on-irelands-waters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/719965\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Our river is dying’ \u2013 Locals warn of strain on Ireland’s waters"},"content":{"rendered":"

More rivers in Ireland are deteriorating than improving according to the latest Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assessment, while temporary beach closures caused by pollution incidents almost doubled last year.<\/p>\n

Across the country, swimmers, anglers and businesses say those trends are being felt in very different ways, from repeated ‘do not swim’ notices to declining fish stocks and major fish kills.<\/p>\n

In Rush, Co Dublin, members of the local Sensational Swimmers group say their daily sea swim is one of the great joys of their lives.<\/p>\n

But problems at a local wastewater treatment plant have led to five recent “no swim” notices between Rush South and North beaches, with two occurring in early June.<\/p>\n

“We were notified that there was a pump failure and that there was going to be a ‘do not swim’ notice until 31 July. There was quite an uproar,” says Rush resident Sharon Casey.<\/p>\n

\"Rush
\nRush resident Sharon Casey says the ‘no swim’ notices are disappointing<\/p>\n

Last week, another ‘do not swim’ notice appeared for the South Beach in Rush, citing pump failure at the wastewater plant, which lasted four days.<\/p>\n

“It’s disappointing. Sometimes you’re getting in the water and you’re just going, right, hope for the best,” Ms Casey added.<\/p>\n

“There was an issue last summer as well,” says another local swimmer Barry Flynn.<\/p>\n

Pumping stations were installed by Uisce \u00c9ireann in 2019, and in general, the water quality has been listed as excellent.<\/p>\n

But Mr Flynn says, “if there’s any kind of an issue with the pumping stations, then they have to issue a ‘do not swim’ notice.”<\/p>\n

\"Local
\nLocal swimmer Barry Flynn says there were issues last summer with water quality<\/p>\n

Uisce \u00c9ireann issues these precautionary ‘do not swim’ notices when pumping stations are operating with reduced capacity and there is an increased risk of wastewater overflows, particularly during heavy rainfall.<\/p>\n

The water at Rush, like roughly 80% of all bathing waters nationally, is rated “excellent”, with almost all meeting the minimum standard.<\/p>\n

However, what is not reflected in these ratings are temporary closures caused by sewage and other pollution incidents, which almost doubled nationally last year, according to the EPA’s Bathing Water Quality in Ireland 2025 report.<\/p>\n

According to the report, these closures happen because “heavy rainfall can cause wastewater overflows to activate and increase run-off from agricultural land and urban areas, leading to short\u2011term deteriorations in water quality”.<\/p>\n

On the other side of Dublin Bay, water quality at the D\u00fan Laoghaire Baths is classified as “poor” by the EPA and swimming restrictions have been in place throughout this summer.<\/p>\n

Other popular Dublin swimming spots including the Forty Foot, Seapoint, and Killiney were frequently impacted earlier this summer by short-term restrictions issued by D\u00fan Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council following heavy downpours causing storm water overflows.<\/p>\n

For this reason, Professor Fiona Regan, director of Dublin City University’s (DCU) Water Institute, says there is an urgent need to prevent pollution incidents at source.<\/p>\n

“Where you have coastal communities being affected by wastewater coming from treatment plants, we need to see better management of those treatment plants,” Professor Regan said.<\/p>\n

“More and more now because of climate change and changes in weather patterns, we see that intense rainfall events are causing stormwater overflows into coastal areas.<\/p>\n

\"Professor
\nProfessor Fiona Regan of DCU says intense rainfall plays a big part in water quality<\/p>\n

“We need to see real-time solutions, that can give an alert and therefore prevent wastewater entering our coastal areas,” she added.<\/p>\n

‘It’s an embarrassment’<\/p>\n

The problems facing swimmers are not unique to coastal areas.<\/p>\n

Not far from queues of tourist buses at the Rock of Cashel, in Co Tipperary is the village of Ardmayle, with its historic seven-arch bridge spanning the River Suir.<\/p>\n

This stretch of river is renowned for its wild brown trout, attracting tourists who stay in nearby hotels and B&Bs to fish there.<\/p>\n

For years, local angler George McGrath of the Cashel and Golden Tipperary Anglers Association received calls from local hotels asking him to guide visiting anglers.<\/p>\n

“I’ve taken people from all over the world fishing here since I was a teenager. I’m now reluctant to do that for obvious reasons,” Mr McGrath said.<\/p>\n

“It’s an embarrassment to bring foreign anglers to the river now. It’s in such a state,” he added.<\/p>\n

After months of high temperatures, the River Suir is running low through bulrushes and blanket weed.<\/p>\n

Overgrowth has left this stretch of river “a shadow of its former self,” Mr McGrath says.<\/p>\n

Until roughly a decade ago, the angling club’s map showed a nine-mile stretch for fishing, from just north of Ardmayle down to below Ballycarron Bridge.<\/p>\n

This stretch, according to the club, has now dwindled to roughly one mile of fishable river, where brown trout can be caught on a ‘catch-and-release\u2019 basis due to their low number.<\/p>\n

As a fly-fishing angler, Mr McGrath says he has noticed a decline in flies and other insects due to pollution.<\/p>\n

“Of course, everything else is dependent on the insects as you go up the food chain impacting fish stock and birds,” he says.<\/p>\n

\"Local
\nLocal angler Mr McGrath says the River Suir is in ‘such a state’<\/p>\n

“Kingfishers, dippers, blackcaps and herons are rarely seen now,” he added.<\/p>\n

The River Suir, which rises and mostly flows through Tipperary before entering the sea in Co Waterford, is affected by multiple sources of pollution.<\/p>\n

According to the EPA’s 2024 Suir Catchment Report, agriculture is the biggest pressure on at-risk water bodies, while urban wastewater, industry and other human activities also contribute to declining water quality.<\/p>\n

According to the 2025 summary report from the National Agricultural Inspection Programme (NAIP), 68% of the 383 farmers inspected in Tipperary failed their initial inspection for good agricultural practice, compared with a national average of 43%.<\/p>\n

Professor Regan says the problems on the River Suir are well understood.<\/p>\n

“Where you have intensification of agriculture, you’re going to see those excess nutrients entering the waterways. We need to see management of the land whereby you don’t get runoff when slurry spreading is occurring,” Prof Regan said.<\/p>\n

“You need buffer zones, you also need the hedgerows back in there, so there’s lots of natural solutions that really need to be implemented and can be done,” she added.<\/p>\n

Denis Drennan, President of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA), says farmers were “in the process of adapting to the new [water quality] requirements” and he was confident that they would “up their game.”<\/p>\n

Anglers like Mr McGrath have long emphasised the river as an important amenity for locals and tourists and called for remedial action but say little has changed.<\/p>\n

“Our river is effectively dying in front of our eyes. It nearly brings tears to my eyes,” he says.<\/p>\n

“We have F\u00e1ilte \u00c9ireann going to America and all over the world and lauding our green credentials, how clean a country we are and how our clean water is. That flies in the face of the facts,” he added.<\/p>\n

Last month, the EPA reported that more rivers in Ireland are declining in quality than improving.<\/p>\n

As a result, just 54% are in good or high ecological condition. In addition, eight rivers were removed from the list of high-status water bodies, reducing their number to 77 nationwide.<\/p>\n

Fish kills<\/p>\n

While most water pollution is slow and gradual, there\u2019s also the ongoing issue of major pollution events, leading to fish kills according to Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI).<\/p>\n

Overnight, the IFI reported “a significant fish kill” at the Cavan River in Co Cavan.<\/p>\n

The IFI said it was investigating the incident with early indications suggesting “more than 4,500 fish have died”.<\/p>\n

And last month, 20,000 fish were killed by a pollution incident on the River Glyde in Co Louth.<\/p>\n

Conor O’Neill, who owns and runs The Glyde Inn, a seafood restaurant, in Annagassan, says the fish kill has been a huge blow to his business.<\/p>\n

“People are genuinely heartbroken about what happened. For generations and generations families have fished the river, kayaked, and walked along the side of the river, and so it is part of the community,” Mr O’Neill said.<\/p>\n

“Before we were called The Glyde Inn, we were called The Salmon Inn, which shows the significance of wild Annagassan salmon back in the day. I would love to be able to put [salmon] back on the menu,” he added.<\/p>\n

\"Conor
\nConor O’Neill says that people are ‘heartbroken’ by the pollution incident<\/p>\n

While The Glyde Inn\u2019s seafood menu remains unaffected and popular, the business has still been impacted by the fish kill.<\/p>\n

“Generally, we would have a good few anglers that would come in after a day’s fishing for a bite to eat, for a coffee, or some fresh seafood. Some of them would actually stay overnight in our accommodation,” Mr O\u2019Neill said.<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately, we’ve seen quite a dip in the number of anglers coming because of that,” he added.<\/p>\n

While major pollution events such as fish kills can have an immediate and devastating impact, Prof Regan says they are only one part of the challenge facing Ireland’s waterways.<\/p>\n

“We have the convergence of climate impact – those heavy rainfall events and increased temperatures – which means our rivers are lower flows. That is also hugely impacting, so we have a bigger job, a more difficult job ahead, I believe.”<\/p>\n

A report on water quality from Oonagh Smyth and producer\/director Genevieve Brennan will be broadcast on the 30 July edition of Prime Time at 9.35pm on RT\u00c9 One and RT\u00c9 Player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More rivers in Ireland are deteriorating than improving according to the latest Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assessment, while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":719966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-719965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/719966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}