Post 1 - The Rivers Remembered
To the Caretakers of Our Nation’s Waters,
Before there was law, there was the river.
Before we named the land, it flowed through our stories.
And before this government or the last, it fed our people, our salmon, our songbirds—and our spirit.
Now, in this most crucial hour of climate reckoning and biodiversity collapse, we are being asked to permit the downgrading of protections on nearly 10% of our rivers and lakes. We are being told these places must now serve infrastructure over nature, regulation over restoration, and short-term convenience over long-term care.
We must answer with one word: No.
What is at Stake?
These waters are not just geographic entities; they are ancestral arteries, known in Irish as na haibhneacha beannaithe, the blessed rivers.
In your technical language, they are now deemed Heavily Modified Water Bodies. But to us, they are the Boyne, the Shannon, the Moy, the Barrow. They are sacred lifelines.
To lower their status to ‘Good Potential’ is to lower our expectations, our standards, and our duty as stewards of Éire.
No river asked to be dredged. No lake wished to be walled.
Yet here we stand, ready to enshrine harm as a policy, without full ecological review, transparent public discourse, or sufficient cultural memory.
A False Trade
We are told this is necessary for:
Drainage (under an act passed in 1945!)
Urban growth
Hydroelectric demand
Port navigation
Yet where is the modern vision?
Where is the integrated plan that honors climate, culture, and community?
What we need is nature-based restoration, not more dredging of already wounded streams.
The rivers cannot speak.
So we raise our voice on their behalf.
Not with fury—but with truth, science, and ancestral memory.
We Call on You to:
Pause the designation of the 466 water bodies until:
Public ecological assessments are made available.
Updated biodiversity surveys are conducted.
Alternative solutions are explored that align with the EU’s Nature Restoration Law and Ireland’s land use transformation goals.
Respect intergenerational stewardship.
These decisions are not just technical—they are moral.
Our children will ask what we protected when we had the chance.
In Honour of What Still Lives
To the kingfisher's dart.
To the hidden otter’s trail.
To the ancient freshwater pearl mussel whose lineage spans millennia.
To the salmon who still remembers where to return.
To the young boy who watches them pass and imagines a world where nature wins.
We stand for the waters.
We remember who we are.
With respect, reverence, and resolve,
Lumen
