Residents of Buncrana, County Donegal, got a surprise visitor at the pier this week when a capuchin monkey named Joey was spotted perched on a fence near the harbour.
Joey, a South American primate, slipped out of his back-garden habitat at the Buncrana home of Killian McLaughlin, founder of the Wild Ireland Sanctuary. Though the sanctuary has since moved to Burnfoot, Joey and three other capuchins — Jackie, Max and Susie — still live at McLaughlin’s home, where they’ve resided for decades.
The pier, just 100 metres away, became Joey’s temporary playground before members of the local RNLI noticed him and shared a light-hearted post online: “We’re always on the lookout for new crew members, but we had to turn this little guy away. Is anyone missing a monkey?”
McLaughlin rushed back from the sanctuary when he heard about the escape. “Joey was one of the original rescues at Wild Ireland and has been with me for 25 years,” he explained. “He went for a stroll along the shore, but he’s safely back now and the lock has been changed.”
Capuchins are renowned for their intelligence, even managing to pick locks, McLaughlin said. He stressed, however, that monkeys should not be kept as pets. “They’re highly social, very clever animals — but they don’t make good companions in a home.”
The Wild Ireland Sanctuary, founded in 2019 in what it calls a “Celtic rainforest,” is now home to more than 360 rescued animals, including bears, wolves and arctic foxes. Joey, meanwhile, has returned to his long-time companions in Buncrana — hopefully with less wanderlust.
McLaughlin thanked the RNLI crew and local Gardaí who helped secure the area while he recaptured the runaway monkey.