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It’s been almost two weeks since the disappearance of Fungie, the dolphin superstar Dingle, brought an entire town in Co Kerry to mourning.
A massive search operation has detected neither sight nor sound for the mammal for decades, and hopes are quickly dashed.
But the episode has put dolphins, and the special connections they make with humans, firmly in the spotlight.
And while Fungie might be Ireland’s favorite son, he is not the only famous dolphin in Irish waters.
For more than 20 years, Fáinne, or Dusty for some, has thrilled crowds around Wild Atlantic Way.
Thousands of people have flocked to the beaches and coves of West Clare to swim with the lone bottlenose dolphin.
Fáinne is different from Fungie in many ways: she has lived a nomadic lifestyle, roaming the Clare coast.
It also drew more negative headlines than Fungie, and reports of its swimmers attacking left many shocked.
“It would be safe to say it’s wild,” says Ruairi O’Connor, who has been swimming with Fáinne for 20 years.
O’Connor knows Fáinne better than anyone, and says many of her “most unpleasant engagements” have come when the public has treated her like a toy rather than a giant mammal.
“You’re entering their space,” says O’Connor of swimming with Fáinne. “She decides who she wants to associate with or who she doesn’t.”
(Image: Alan Place)
But the occasional media controversy hasn’t stopped legions of enthusiasts from getting into the water with Fáinne, where most have had an exciting and enjoyable experience.
Unlike Fungie, “a lot of the interaction that has happened with Fáinne has been one-on-one: swimming, unlike anything else,” says O’Connor.
She first swam with Fáinne around the turn of the millennium, when reports surfaced that she was swimming at Doolin, Co Clare.
Fainne quickly cultivated a small but exceptionally loyal following.
O’Connor was one of “a cohort of maybe half a dozen” who began swimming regularly with Fáinne around 2000.
Many members of the same group still follow her (she currently lives in Inis Oír in the Aran Islands, having spent time in Fanore and Miltown Malbay) to this day.
And O’Connor says she has brought huge benefits to those who responsibly swam with her.
“One hundred percent, there were health benefits,” he says. “She brought a sense of healing to many people who were anxious or experiencing problems in their lives.”
On why swimming with Fáinne has held so much appeal for so many years, O’Connor says it’s the “pure connection of experience.”
“You didn’t know she would consider you, because you were walking into her office, if you want, her playground,” he says of a typical swimming experience.
“But it was also the feeling of calm if she decided she wanted to swim or play with you, and that feeling of calm that she brought to everyone who knew how to respect her space.
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“It was often the case on those late summer afternoons, and I’m not kidding, that she was basically begging you to come back to play with her.
“Either he would turn on his stomach to have the algae rubbed, or he would turn on his stomach to have his belly rubbed.”
O’Connor says it is difficult to quantify the intangible benefits that Fáinne has brought to the well-being of those who have followed her, but they are just as difficult to deny.
One man even completed a PhD on the health benefits of swimming with her.
“The most interesting thing is that there are still several people who were swimming with her from the beginning, they are still swimming with her,” says O’Connor.
However, he warns that Fáinne will never be a direct replacement for Fungie, they are too different.
Fáinne never had the same commercial appeal as Fungie, mainly because it hasn’t stayed in one place long enough for an industry to grow around it.
For her sake, O’Connor says, it’s best that it stays that way.
So while Fáinne might now be Ireland’s most famous dolphin, he will continue to do things his way, says O’Connor, and “always, always on his own terms.”
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