In Darndale Park, people fish for carp and pike – but an invasive weed threatens the balance

It’s a calm Tuesday evening as Alan Kennedy and his son Nathan cast their fishing lines out over the water.

Near the centre island, bubbles ripple to the dark green surface.

“That’s a mirror carp,” says a friend of Nathan’s who is fishing with them, excitedly, as he stalks the shadow of the fish from the opposite bank of Darndale Park pond.

Close by, a horse trots around a fenced enclosure, in the opposite direction sits an empty playground. 

People pass by – some jogging, some walking dogs. Dotted along the pathway are pieces of outdoor gym equipment. 

This pond gets great use, Alan says. Especially during the summer months when young people can spend an entire day there, from 8am to 8pm, he says.

“They’ll run over to the chipper for their dinner, and bring it right back here and keep fishing.”

Alan fished when he was younger, but stopped for years. 

About three years ago, when he heard his son had started getting into it with friends in Darndale Park, Alan says he felt the pull himself.

Now, the pair fish regularly together in Darndale but also further afield, he says. Just recently visited Carlow on a fishing trip, he says.

However, the angling pond in Darndale, built in 1999, is choked with an invasive weed that threatens to crowd the fish and get in the way of the fishers – and the council’s working on a solution.

Invasive

At Monday’s meeting of the council’s North Central Area Committee, independent Councillor John Lyons raised a motion concerning upkeep of the pond.

It called on the council for a “workable and long-lasting solution to the problems experienced by the many people who fish in the Darndale Park pond to be established, with local consultation informing the solution and a budget secured to carry out the necessary works”.

The problems alluded to involve an invasive weed that “chokes the pond”, making fishing difficult. And that the path along its edges has fallen into disrepair.

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with the pond, it’s in Darndale,” says Gerry Jervis, a local who fishes there most mornings.

“If it was in Foxrock or Howth, it’d be fucking spotless. Because it’s in Darndale, a working-class area, people don’t give a fuck,” he says.

Jervis is a lifelong fisherman, and even competed in angling, representing Ireland twice in the ’80s, he says.

He has become an unofficial custodian of the pond. He gets on his waders, gets out into the pond, and cleans out the weeds himself regularly, he says.

While he sometimes gets help from others, it’s often just himself doing the work – which, he says, at 75, he can’t maintain.

The pond doesn’t need to be perfect, he says, even 50 percent clear is enough for the fish to have enough room.

He keeps his waders and other equipment in a metal box, bolted to the ground, beside the pond.

He’d like to see the council provide the people who help him with waders of their own, he says.

Long-standing issues

What’s infesting the pond is an aggressive weed that was used as an oxygenating plant in home aquariums, says Fergus O’Carroll, the council’s senior executive parks superintendent for this area.

“It is thought that the weed entered the pond when the contents of a domestic aquarium was added to the waters,” O’Carroll said by email on Thursday.  

The council has tried various expensive interventions to control the weed over the last decade, he says.

Efforts like physical removal of the weed and lining the pond floor with jute matting, only provided temporary relief, O’Carroll says. “This plant has the capacity to regrow from the tiniest fragment.”

“The weed is very fast growing and is not only unsightly and reduces available space for the fish and interferes with the fishing activity, it also excludes all other native pond life and plants,” says O’Carroll.

In his response to Lyons’ motion on Monday, O’Carroll said that the recommended treatment to deal with the weed is to remove the fish and drain the pond.

Leaving it to dry out for several months would kill the weed along with all spores and seeds, he said.

Also, “This would allow the paths and edges to be stabilised,” he said.

Wholesome

The pond is a huge asset to the community, said local Paul Byrne, in Darndale Park on Tuesday.

There is a dearth of activities for young people already, he says.

He points to the playground across from the pond, and says parts of it were burned recently. It’s very frustrating, he says.

The fishing pond provides a wholesome, outdoor activity that should be fully encouraged, he says.

Young people even camp by the banks of the pond during the summer, and have their own overnight fishing trip, in the heart of Darndale, says Byrne.

When people see photos of the impressive specimen caught, they can’t believe it was in Darndale pond, says Alan Kennedy.

According to O’Carroll, the council parks superintendent, now is the time to tackle the weed problem, once and for all, and restore a natural balance to the angling pond.

“It is proposed to meet with the stakeholders to discuss and agree a plan to achieve this, which ultimately will benefit the fishing community,” he says.