Creature record / 1673
Dingle, County Kerry. Autumn, 1673. James Steward was riding by the seaside as the tide came in. Out in the water, something "of a strange bigness" was making towards the shore. It made no resistance. It lay stranded. With ropes, Steward, a man named Tompson and Tompson's wife hauled it further on shore. Nineteen feet of smooth flesh. Two heads. Ten horns. Eyes "of Extraordinary Bigness." That night it died. Its parts went to Dublin and its picture went to the printers. Two centuries later it was given a scientific name. Today it is counted as the first giant squid recorded in Irish waters.
October, 1673. Dingle, on the western edge of County Kerry. The printers of the day spelled the town as best they could: "Dingel Ichough", "Dingle-I-cosh". Both were attempts at the Irish name, Daingean Uí Chúis. Within months, three printed accounts of what came ashore there were circulating in Dublin and London. One, a London pamphlet, was "Faithfully Communicated by an Eye witness."