I was told .......

Yeah - I can confirm this, although I wouldn't hold out much hope of ever fishing it.

My Wife's grandfather is closely linked to Fota - he was head groundsman to the house for donkey's years. Back in the mid 1800's, the house was developed from a small hunting lodge into a full residence. Most of the ponds on the land at Fota have been there since that date. Some newer ones were added when the golf course was built on, but nothing in those apart from small fry thats transferred on legs of the birdlife.

The original ponds were stocked as ornamentals, large koi, goldfish and some Tench. The tench were thought to keep the other fish healthy (aka the doctor fish), so landowners often added them when they stocked to protect their investment. Even in those days, the ornamentals were expensive. Around the 1860's, a head of carp were added to the ponds, promarily for sport fishing, although apparently this never took off & due to ill health of the landowner, the ponds were never fished.

In effect, what you have is a perfectly balanced system, completely unfished with the capability of holding some huge fish. Most Carp in the wild live between 10 and 15 years, although there have been reported cases of carp in protected waters (semi doesticated such as Fota) living for several decaded. In Fota, you are possibly talking about fourth generation carp for some of the bigger ones.

I wrote to Fota about 3 years back and was told that there were no plans to allow fishing in the ponds due to the delicate balance of the water system, which is fair comment.

It's worth going along to have a look at the ponds, you often see a 'roll' on the surface.

So there ya go - history lesson for today, fascinating stuff really - hope you found it interesting !