DALE DRINNON: Irish Sea Serpents

A while back there was some discussion of the Cork Constitution sea serpent rash of reports in 1850 on the CFZ blog. Heuvelmans lists the entire series as an elaborate hoax, but he says very little about the individual reports. It is as if he had a run of Loch Ness Monster reports from one year with a few hoaxes included and then says that all the sightings that year comprised one hoax. James Sweeny's Pictoral History of Sea Monsters and Other Dangerous Marine Life, which does have some unexpected additional information in it as well as some misinformation that a little research would have corrected, speaks of a few of the reports on pages 87-89. The first one from R. W. Travers seems to be derived from Dinsdale's retelling from The Loch Ness Monster and includes a statement that the creature was shedding its skin rubbing against some rocks. That may or may not be true, but the other reports repeat his description and the dimensions of the sea monsters described in this series match are the same as the big creature reported at San Clemente, head and neck 20-30 feet long and 6 feet thick, total length 100-120 feet with large eyes (this version gives the more reduced measurement of nine inches in diameter which might be closer to the truth than saying a foot) The Cork Constitution reports of September 1850 (recounted in the text) might well be legitimate reports and the plate on page 89 might be a legitimate representation of it, I think that is an interesting illustration because it is shown as undulating laterally and it has the large vaguely crocodile-shaped head that goes with the type: it also seems to have foreflippers, more obvious in other different but similar illustrations at the time. This may be the closest thing we have to a witness' impression of one of the really big ones, unless the drawing for the U28 case is authentic and it represents the same type.

So the question is, can some blog reader get a copy of that illustration? I cannot, I do not currently have a scanner. But it does seem that there are more and more reports in this category turning up but not recognised as belonging together because Heuvelmans (for example) will call one a Merhorse, another one a Super-eel and yet again other reports as hoaxes. Actually once you have the distinctive proportions down the reports are obvious: the head and neck average 25 feet, neck diameter average 6 or 7 feet, and a very great length of a hundred feet long or more on the average but sometimes reported as 250 and even 500 feet- one reason several of the reports are taken to be hoaxes, but the real length probably is close to the most common estimate at 100 feet long. It is also very elongated and the rear part of the body and tail is described as looking like an eel, but it has four flippers: something like a fin or mane is sometimes reported along the spine. The tail is like an eel's tail and it swims by horizontal undulations BUT if the body is submerged the wake can still leave the appearance of "Vertical undulations" because of the waves in the wake.

On the occasion of the Cork Constitution cases, the sighting off Kinsdale specify that large numbers of fishes werre around at the time: but the Sea-serpent in this case would not be chasing the little ones. It would be hunting bigger prey-probably the sharks or dolphins that had also come into the area to eat the smaller fishes.