One of the best pictures of life in the West comes, unsurprisingly from Sean Nixon, a man who has spent a lifetime "Guarding the Silver", as his book is entitled, i.e. guarding the sea trout and salmon in the service of fisheries management, and for long on behalf of the Western Regional Fisheries Board. It is not just a book for anglers, for he takes in the life all around him. Apart from the anglers and poachers there are the poteen makers, and other extras on the stage; there is the wild bird and animal life. (At a time when it was legitimate to kill otters, to protect the precious fish, his largest was 5ft 7ins from nose-tip to tail end.) He notices the losses - the corncrake, the grouse, the merlin, a small hawk which, he says used to be common around Connemara lakes. In a nest of their eggs, not one hatched. He blames high levels of DDT. But people, not always met in friendly circumstances, throng the pages. "During my fifty years of protecting and developing fisheries, I have been shot at, threatened with knives, assaulted with sticks, bars and other implements, abused verbally and threatened with having my house burned down. Luckily, despite a number of x-rays and trips to the local doctor and hospital, my various injuries were never too serious."
Peter Mantle of Delphi Lodge pays tribute to him in a foreword, not least for his "great humanity and sense of purpose" and marks out his book as "A piece of Irish social history", remarking sadly that Sean Nixon's beloved sea trout fisheries collapsed in the late 1980s, but due not to anything in the pristine freshwater catchments he had so carefully protected throughout his life. Yet he bore his pain with great dignity. "In short he is a hero, and his wife Annie for supporting Sean so well over the years." Of necessity, there is a good deal about courthouses and fines. Sean Nixon ("a law and order man") gets some fun out of legal life.
He tells of one case, nothing to do with fish, where an appeal was being made on behalf of a young man who had been banned due to a drunk driving offence. The solicitor put up a good case, claiming that his client had given up drink and joined the Pioneers. The boy's father and mother had to miss Mass every Sunday because the young man could not drive them to church. The judge said he couldn't be responsible for keeping decent people away from Mass. He gave a strong warning to the boy and let him have his licence back. He called the young man up to the bench and said "Will you tell your mother when you go home that she put the Pioneer badge in the wrong side of your jacket this morning." A lovely read. Private edition of 500 copies printed by Berry Printing Works in Westport. Hope it goes into more editions. This copy came directly from the Western Regional Fisheries Board, the Weir Lodge, Earl's Island, Galway.