"What’s happening here is a bereavement. People are devastated to think he might be gone. It’s like a member of the family dying."
These are the words of Caroline Boland, a spokeswoman for the Dingle Peninsula Tourism Alliance, as quoted by the New York Times in a piece published earlier this week. The fact that Fungie's disappearance has attracted the attention of one of the world's most famous publications tells us everything we need to know about how important he is to Dingle and Ireland as a whole.
Written by Ed O'Loughlin, an Irish-Canadian journalist, the article takes up the story two weeks after the last known sighting of Fungie and quotes marine biologist Kevin Flannery as saying Fungi "had gone missing before, but only ever for a day or two."
Caroline Boland adds that "People are devastated to think he might be gone. It’s like a member of the family dying. He brought magic and he inspired us, this beautiful wild creature who lived at the mouth of the harbour.”
The NYT says that Fungie 'is widely credited with adding Kerry’s northernmost peninsula to the mainstream tourism map' and it's not the first Stateside media outlet to take up the story. Last week,
CNN described Fungie as an 'Irish celebrity' and with all that's going on in the world, there's still an appetite for updates on Ireland's most famous marine figure.
The New York Times concludes by quoting Ilonka Duignan, a local yoga instructor, who says: "He’s gone back to the wild, and I hope that he’ll never be found. Or that he’ll come back. One or the other.”
Whatever the outcome, we can all just hope that Fungie is as happy as he made the rest of us. You can read the full New York Times article
here.
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