We have seen several accounts of mermaid -sighting and here is a second one from the emerald isle. It is thought that manatees were mistaken for them, but those animals don’t resemble the description given below.
“The following article appears in the Drogheda Journal of the 26th ult.:-‘The declaration of George Hoey, parish clerk of Termon-fechin, in the county of Louth, and of Owen Maguire and Patrick Taaffe, of the said parish, farmers, states that on Wednesday the 18th August inst., as they were on the sea-shore, on the lands of Meagh’s farm, in the said parish, about half-past three in the afternoon, the tide being nearly in, they saw a mermaid (as they believe from having seen it described in books), of the full human size, swimming in the sea and directing its course towards the river Boyne – that it was only about fifteen perches from them – that they and several other persons saw it quite plain, and that they could not be mistaken – that its body was remarkably white, with long arms, which it frequently used to drive away the sea-gulls which were hovering over it – that its hair was very dark, and that its tail, which it frequently showed when plunging, was of a dark colour, and shaped like the tail of a fish. The body of the animal, which from the size, was generally about three feet above the water. – They state that they saw it for more than a quarter of an hour, and when they were leaving the place, it was still about the surface of the water. We questioned the above-named persons on Saturday, relative to this phenomenon on our coast, and received such satisfactory answers as leave no doubt on our minds of its having been seen as stated.'”
The Stamford Mercury, 3rd September, 1824.