Lake Donnie Man

Our Emerald Isle – Lake Donnie Man

Lake Donnie Man is the largest lake in the County of O’Malley.  As one might expect it was named after a chap called Donnie Mann some years ago but until just recently that was all I knew.  Partly because I never bothered to ask. 

A man will lie to his wife.  He will lie to his priest.  He will lie to the police.  In fact a man will lie to just about anyone or anything if he thinks the truth will cause him pain or embarrassment or increase or decrease his status in the community.  One person though he will never lie to is his pub keeper no more than I would fabricate my blog entries.    

It was late.  Devere’s Pub was about to close.  The last patron was Shamus O’Malley.  Outside the wind picked up and the shutters blew open.  Shamus although a few cups into his own wind helped me close and secure the window shutters.  For his help I drew him one more pint and we began to chat.  As he was about to finish his free brew I indicated it was time to leave but felt a little bad about putting him out in the pounding wind and rain.  He was feeling about the same I guess because he asked me if he could stick around a little longer.  Well he looked so low I couldn’t say no so I drew another pint, which he bought by the way, and we continued our aimless conversation. 

We finally got around to talking about fishing, which finally led me to ask how Lake Donnie Mann got its name, more rhetorical than anything else.  I did not expect illumination let alone a saga.  He hunched over his beer, looked over his shoulder like he was making sure no one was around and said, “Since you have shown me some kindness I will relate to you a story told to me by my Grandfather.  It is not a secret story but no one believes it except me and I have been made fun of more than once in my telling.  Grandfather was an honest man and he swore to me that what I am about to relate is a true story and I believe him.  I have no children, thus no grandchildren so I might as well tell you because if I did have children they would be about your age.  After hearing what I am about to tell you  feel free to pass it on to whoever you want just be prepared that knowing the truth does not always free one from ridicule.  Not relating the story as often I think it deserves has burnt a hole in my soul for many years.  I have been afraid I would die without anyone believing me, and I sense you will.”

“Donnie Mann was a trader in salt.  He would pick up a load of salt at one end of the lake and deliver it to the villages dotted around the shore.  It was the custom in those days for people to name their boat after themselves and The Donnie Mann was known far and wide and so dominated the salt trade and other necessary cargo delivery that people started referring to the lake as Donnie Mann’s.  Donnie Mann was a proud and arrogant man and began to think of the lake as his own and its master.  However the lake had a mind of its own so it seems.

 “It was sort of a night like tonight my Grandfather said.  The wind was howling, the waves were gigantic, and it was blistering cold.  Donnie Mann had one more load of salt to deliver and he sat here in this very pub with his three man crew waiting for the storm to pass.  Put pass it did not.  Donnie Mann became impatient.  He decided to make the run across the lake to deliver his last load.  He was bound and determined to leave and collect a large fee for his even larger stash of salt this trip. Every one in the pub even his crew begged him not to go.  He would not listen and called his crew a bunch of cowards when they refused to accompany him.  He marched down to the docks, set sale, and Donnie Mann and The Donnie Mann were never seen nor heard from again or so it was in the life time of those in the pub that night.  Eventually the lake began to be called Lake Donnie Mann.” 

Well I thought that was interesting but it didn’t seem much like a story others would not believe and ridicule, and I told him so.

“Me lad, that is only half the story.”  He continued:  “Many, many years later a fishing boat came across a drifting derelict floating aimlessly far from shore.  The crew of the fishing boat realized that the boat was crewless and must have been abandoned, so  thoughts of salvage took the place of fishing. 

“When they boarded they searched for cargo but found none.  They did not understand why the boat had been abandoned because it was in pretty good shape. Their search eventually led them to the helm where they found the ship’s log.  Having a some what limited interest in books they did realize however it might help to secure salvage rights.  Instead of reading the log right away they gave it to the youngest member of the crew for safe keeping.  That was my  Grandfather.

“They secured the boat for towing and headed towards land.  It had been a clear day but from out of nowhere a northern squall appeared.  It was like the lake had its own idea about salvage rights that day and did not want to give up the boat and claim it as its own.  Both boats were capsized and sunk with all hands lost, save my Grandfather who was found two days later clinging to the side of an over turned dingy.

“At the formal inquest at the Maritime Court held in Dublin an investigation tried to determine what had actually happened to the fishing boat.  They called my Grandfather to give testimony.  They believed him about the storm, the capsizing, and the loss of the crew.  When asked if there was any indication as to the name of the boat trying to be salvaged is when doubt crept into the proceedings.  ‘Twas called The Donnie Mann me Lord,’ Grandfather told the Court.  From that statement he would not budge although he was laughed at and threatened with imprisonment for piracy gone awry.

“More rational thought finally prevailed given my Grandfathers youth and the Court took pity on Grandfather and cleared him of any wrong doing.  They did order that since The Donnie Mann had gone missing over a hundred years ago it could not have possibly been the boat in question.  The poor lad must be delusional the inquest determined and he was ordered to the Saint Patrick’s Hospital for the Insane until such time as Grandfather sort fact from fiction.  At that time and no sooner he could be released. 

“Grandfather decided after three months of incarceration that unless he changed his story he really would become insane and decided that honesty and integrity were not that important.  He petitioned the court and changed his story, saying he realized he must have been hallucinating after all.  Grandfather returned to Devere took up farming and never sailed on a ship again.”

I immediately saw a flaw in his story, an inconsistency, one that did not close the loop to any great mystery.  The story I decided was just a bunch of the blarney.  “What happened to the Ship’s Log that was given to your Grandfather? I suspect he lost it when the ships went down didn’t he?”  I was trying to give him an honorable way out of the corner he had told himself into.

“Well yes the Log was lossed.  Like I said he was floating around for two days clinging to a dingy.  Having been given the Log Book for safe keeping he had tied it around his neck.  While he was floating around he had nothing to do so he started reading the Log.  Most of the log had been ruined and he only was able to read the cover page and the last entry with any clarity and other bits and pieces.  The cover had ‘Ship’s Log: The Donnie Mann.’  Captain Donnie Mann’s last entry was ‘To much salt, ship taking on water, am foundering.’  He had always heard about Donnie Mann and realized he held an answer to a mystery in his hand.  He also realized that he would probably die alone at sea and his discovery concerning The Donnie Mann would never be known. He began to carve on the side of the dingy a very short version of what I just told you. 

“He eventually passed out and when he awoke on a life saving trawler that happened by his saviors had no knowledge of the Log and the dingy had not been retrieved.  The Log no doubt was destroyed and it and the dingy rested somewhere at the bottom of Lake Donnie Mann.  It is a story that is true, Grandfather had no reason to lie about his finding but without proof he was never believed outside the family, and spent the rest of his life walking along the lake shore early in the morning just in case the dingy had broken apart and a tell tale portion drift ashore.  If one did it may not have been actual proof of his story but it seemed more important to him the older he became.”

The wind and rain had calmed down.  We made a little toast to Donnie Mann, The Donnie Mann, Lake Donnie Mann, and finally Grandfather and bid each other a good night.

Over biscuits and coffee the next morning I was relaying the story to Bev.  She looked nonplussed but said it was a mystery but not a great mystery.  “I have heard something like that before albeit off the coast of Nova Scotia.  As I remember the story my Great Uncle Vinnie was smuggling a load of whiskey from Canada.  He over loaded the boat and when a northern squall came up the weight of the whiskey in the casks was too much and the boat went down. Uncle Vinney and the crew survived but the loss was not made known to the authorities naturally.  Some months later the boat reappeared floating about the same place where Uncle Vinney claimed it had sunk.  The Coast Guard traced the registration to a corporation in Chicago but the company did not exist naturally and those listed as company executives and board members were all dead according to Cook County records.  The Coast Guard was at a loss to explain anything.  It was Uncle Michael who postulated among the family that the whiskey had probably seeped from cracks in the kegs while on the bottom, said cracks caused by the pounding storm, lightning the load, thus allowing the ships normal buoyancy to bring it to the surface.   If The Donnie Mann was overloaded with salt the weight could have easily taken it to the bottom and when the salt eventually dissolved the ship would resurface.  If The Donnie Mann’s cargo compartments were water tight, as one would expect it to be in the salt trade, dissolving could take a long time and given the coolness of the lake bottom the wood would have rotted more slowly than normal and what little wood rot that had taken place would not have prevented it floating again.  The boat became lighter at the bottom of the lake ergo up she went.”  Well I can always count on Bev to come up with a rational solution to any mysterious encounter I come across.

Ray the Raven and I went out for our morning walk along the banks of Lake Donnie Mann as we did every morning and as every morning we passed Shamus O’Malley doing the same.  This time though we eyed each other knowingly like we shared a secret which in fact we did.  I will never be able to walk the lake shore again without keeping a look out for flat pieces of drift wood that just might have come from a dingy supposedly lost many years ago.