Rare sighting of the world’s largest mammals, the blue whale, off Cork’s coast

Adult FEMALES can get to that size. And the longest reliably measured were 98 ft (30 m).

"the massive animals who inspired Herman Melville’s novel “Moby Dick”. Wrong. Hate to be a pedant, (well, not really) but as someone who considers Moby Dick the greatest novel in the language, I must correct columnist Hayes. The whale who is the protagonist of Melville's masterpiece is a sperm whale, somewhat smaller than a blue whale, but a species that provided better oil.