The 'Lough Eske Monster'
In July 1998, the national daily, The Irish Daily Star, published a story entitled ‘Look out, it’s Eskie’, which made claims of a ‘monster’ sighting in the lake. Staff and residents at Harvey’s Point told the reporter that at 2.30pm on Sunday 28 June 1998 saw an unidentified object moving about 300 m of the shore. Other locals interviewed, such as bed and breakfast owners Annabel and Kieran Clarke, repeated some of the local folklore when they told the paper that ‘some lakes in Donegal are said to be connected by current to Scotland’, trying to make a link with the much more famous Loch Ness Monster. Some people suggested that the Lough Eske Monster was a publicity stunt by the chairman of the local Donegal Summer Festival committee, Zack Gallagher. He, however, has always denied this and has gone on record as believing in the existence of such a beast. The idea of a monster in Lough Eske was not raised after this and some commentators have suggested that it may have been a lost seal that swam the short distant up the River Eske from Donegal Bay.
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