Seal For Approval

If Philip Lynott’s ghost still frequents his home turf, the scene at Howth Harbour on this blue-skied spring afternoon would bring a smile to his spirit-lips. The rock legend’s mother, Philomena, is amongst the large crowd on the harbour who have turned up to watch a rescued seal pup be returned to
the sea.

“Philip was an animal-lover like me,” says Philomena. She is still very beautiful at 80, dressed elegantly in black. I admire her large silver butterfly necklace and dragonfly earrings. “I collect antique animal jewellery,” she explains. “These are your boys?” She points towards my son and his friend. It strikes me forcefully, mother to mother, that here is a woman who lost her wonderfully gifted child to drink and drugs.
“Philip was a rocker,” says Philomena, “but there was a whole lovely other side to him, too. He would have loved to be at something like this, to bring his kids down and watch a seal being released back to the wild.”
The seal in question is Daisy. She gazes up with huge, soulful brown eyes through the bars of the large plastic container in which she has travelled up from Courtown, Co. Wexford this morning. Daisy has spent the last four months being rehabilitated in the Irish Seal Sanctuary at Courtown Harbour. Now she’s ready to be returned to the wild, from the spot where she was found last autumn.
A cloud of fishy perfume surrounds the seal. She’s only a teenager, but Daisy is strong, and makes a good effort trying to push the lid off her crate. The cameras are out, and I notice a man trying to drag a shy, unwilling dog in for a picture with Daisy. “Do I really have to do this?” says the dog in body language.
The dog, a beautiful ‘red’ Doberman, is also called Daisy, and it is she who discovered the injured, dehydrated, starving seal pup on the shore last October.
“We were walking along just after high-tide,” recalls the dog’s owner, Robert Orr. “Daisy spotted the seal. It was amazing. She didn’t go near her at all. She just knew that something was wrong and stood by.”
The dog Daisy is herself a rescue animal, who had been stolen from her original owner. Her current owner explains: “She was found in a barn with forty animals, pretty bad a lot of them. There were drugs found there as well. Because she had a chip they were able to trace the guy who first owned her, but he wasn’t able to take her back, so we got her.”
THE LONG GOODBYE
I can tell how well-loved and well-trained Daisy is. I stroke her gorgeous soft ears and praise her for saving the seal. Since it started in 1986, the Irish Seal Sanctuary (ISS) has treated and released over 800 seals.
“Unfortunately some do pass away,” says Sonia Mooney of the ISS. “But we’ve had a very good year so far – all fifty-five seals we’ve rescued are well enough to be released. We’ve another one heading off from Courtown tomorrow. They’re all getting pretty big and fed up in their pools, and they’re dying to go back to the wild.”
I enquire about the tag on Daisy’s tail.
“It’s to help us know if anything happens to the seals, if they turn up on a beach somewhere or they haven’t been able to survive, or if they become problem seals for boats. We ask the general public and fishermen to call us in a tag number if they spot the seals. If we release Daisy here today, we might get a call from a fisherman up in Donegal in three weeks saying we have your seal here. They end up all over the place. We’ve had seals come over from Wales and France, seals that have been rehabilitated in centres over there. The seals go where they please. They follow the fish.
“At the last count there were 5,500 to 7,000 seals around the Irish coast. That’s a healthy population, with no danger of in-breeding. If there was an epidemic of distemper we would be in trouble, but at the moment they’re perfectly healthy and going strong.”
Aside from saving seals, the ISS rescues other marine wildlife found in difficulty around Ireland’s coast, and raises awareness about marine biodiversity. At Philomena Lynott’s urging, the fan organisation known as ‘Friends Of Philo’ chose the ISS as one of the recipients of cash raised at their upcoming fourth Thin Lizzy Charity Tribute.
“We use Phil Lynott’s music to raise funds for great causes,” says Colm Weadick of Friends of Philo. “This year’s a big one, being the 25th anniversary of his death. Philomena always asks that we raise funds for animals. The Irish Seal Sanctuary is in Courtown just beside Arklow, where we’re based, so that’s why I’m up here today, trying to promote them. This year’s gig is also in aid of the Wicklow Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the Róisín Dubh Trust, which is a trust for Philomena, so that when she moves on, all her memorabilia on Philip will go to a museum in Dublin. That’s what we’re working towards, and that’s why the Phil Lynott exhibition coming up in Dublin is so important.”
The crowd on the harbour start moving. Daisy in her crate is carried onto the shore and placed twenty feet away from the lapping water. Spectators gather in a line on either side. Young James McSharry, who has travelled up from Wexford and is one of the children who helped pay for Daisy’s rehabilitation by ‘adopting’ her, bids the seal a sad goodbye. The lid of the crate is removed and it is turned on its side. Daisy is stunned for a moment by the breath of freedom. Tentatively, she makes her way out of her container and slowly clambers across the stones towards the water. It is awesome to watch how – despite months being fed by humans in captivity – the expanse of the sea calls to Daisy’s wild nature. There she goes! Everyone claps and cheers, and Daisy slips into the waves, a testament to multi-species co-operation.
A hundred feet from the shore, what appears to be another seal awaits Daisy. For 15 minutes, a thinning crowd watch the romance unfold. Daisy bids a long farewell, disappearing and re-emerging in the choppy water, as she heads out to sea and her new companion. Turning to walk back up the beach, when Daisy has finally disappeared from view, I spot the artist Jim Fitzpatrick, one of the special guests invited to send Daisy on her way.
“I don’t actually think that is another seal,” he says. “A seal wouldn’t stay in the same spot without moving for that long.”
I look again at what I’d thought was a head bobbing up and down in the water. Jim is right.
“Shhh,” he smiles mischievously. “Don’t tell anyone.”

The fourth Thin Lizzy Charity Tribute takes place in the Arklow Bay Hotel on Friday May 13. For more info, visit www.friendsofphilo.com and
www.roisindubh.org