DUBLIN: Tanzania’s gift of an elephant to Ireland in 1980 left Dublin with a “weighty baby” problem — and having to pay the transport costs, according to archive files made public today.

The elephant, presented to President Patrick Hillery by President Julius Nyerere in February 1980, resulted in a “mess”, say files of the National Archives Office.

Tanzania’s foreign ministry wrote to the Irish embassy in September asking if it “recalled” that Ireland had agreed to pay the air freight charges of about 66,000 Tanzanian shillings. “The Ministry would appreciate if the embassy would make the refund at its earliest opportunity,” the letter said.

“Do you have 4,000 pounds to spare?” asks

a December telexed

memo from the Irish foreign ministry in Dublin to its embassy in Dar-es-Salaam. “None of the three departments we have had to contact in an attempt

to sort out this mess has either. The upshot of the whole affair is that we are left holding this weighty baby.” it says.