133 Times the Limit

Arsenic and aluminum in the waters around Aughinish

The water is pure. It tastes of nothing, it’s for the most part bland; it is the colour of nothing, harmless really, but there’s arsenic in the groundwater around Aughnish, which is being reported by Conor Gallagher in the Irish Times to be 133 times the legal limit. Arsenic does not announce itself. It does not stain the glass or leave a metallic aftertaste on the tongue. It is omnipresent but invisible. It simply arrives, dissolves, and remains invisible, waiting. The problem, you see, is not the poison itself but the labour of persuasion of convincing the entire Aughinish community and surrounding areas that the clear, boring, tasteless water they have always drawn from the ground is, in fact, a slow and patient poisonous assassin living inside them. But the farmers around Aughinish know this and have been telling us for almost three decades.

Once arsenic is ingested over and over, the body begins its convulsions. Skin rises in dark, leprous patches; the gut seizes and empties itse…