Irish Supreme Court judge Theodore Conyingham Kingsmill Moore and his family at the College Races, Trinity Week, from the Tatler, 5 June 1952.

In addition to his legal achievements, Judge Kingsmill Moore was the author of the noted publication, ‘A Man May Fish,’ a classic to this day due to its effortless juxtaposition of the practical and the mystical so well illustrated by the below extract:

“Lastly there is night fishing, where everything must be sacrificed to safety and simplicity.  One fly, a strong cast, a reasonably short line, heavily nailed boots and down-stream fishing are the rule, for it is easy to get a tangle or a bad slip.  Heavy fish are taken and occasional heavy baskets are made in this way.  When the new reservoir was constructed at Poulaphouca, anglers fishing the mouths of the rivers had some exceptional nights. 

The tales of regular slaughter to be made in this way can, however, be grossly exaggerated. I never got more than half a dozen fish of very moderate size by fishing at night.  Nor did I greatly care.  The value of night fishing is as a sedative to fretted nerves and tired brain.  A sedative, yet something more, a portal of escape from the instancy of the present.  As the night deepens the river takes command.  Its voice mounts, filling the valley, rising to the rim of the hills, no longer one voice but a hundred.  Time and place are dissolving; the centuries have lost their meaning; timelessness is all.  One foot is crossing the invisible frontier which bounds the land of the old gods. 

Then comes the whistle of an otter, the bark of a fox – and you are back in the world of sentiency.  Almost you fear to turn lest, black upon the moon-blanched sand, there should be the hoof marks of a goat.”

Central to ‘A Man May Fish’ is the ghillie Jamesie, a man of unparalleled knowledge on all aspects of the art of the rod, whose last words to the judge were the tongue-in-cheek riposte, ‘Some Dublin counsellors are a damn side too smart for us poor country boys.’ 

Alas, there follows in the next paragraph an account of the author’s sad discovery of the death of his old fishing companion:

“‘How is Jamesie?’ I asked Jimmy when I came down next season. ‘Dead, Sir,’ he said. ‘Dead these three months.’  I should have expected it, of course.  But it was a bitter little pang when it came. ‘Why did you not let me know,’ I said, ‘so that I could have come down for the funeral.’ ‘Ye couldn’t have come, Sir,’ he said, ‘for I saw on the paper as how ye were defendin’ a man for murther.  I wasn’t goin’ to throuble ye.’ 

I have no doubt that Jamesie got safely through the golden gates; but there might have been a little delay while two old fishermen exchanged a tale or two.”

‘A Man May Fish,’ is available to purchase on amazon; it can also be borrowed from archive.org.

Second Image Credit: Amazon