Hi Elwyn
You are probably correct and it may be a mater of definition. There was
inland and deep sea fishing which may have had different rules. In an
article by McGill Uni. titled Irish fishing controversy date written
1973 they write...While Ireland remained under British rule, any
development of the Irish fishing industry was viewed as a potential
threat to Britain's industry. Petitions to Parliament from England ~nd
Scotland resulted in a law being enacted during the 17th century which
prevented Irish fishermen leaving port while the English fleet was
fishing. In the 18th century, the curing of fish was brought to a
standstill by the imposition of a penal duty on imported salt.... There
are several more mentions of this in other sources but the long run of
this was to slowly cripple the fishing industry so that by 1840 it was
about half of what it once was and ports and jetties had fallen into
disrepair. I believe that the population of Ireland around Tyrone, Cavan
etc while being inland were quite fluid looking for work to feed their
families. One of my family appears to have build a boat called the
Martha and Samuel McCoy and his wife Armay sailed to Newfoundland.
Newfoundland museums mention that is was a common story of emigration
from Ireland to a new life. In an effort to stave off these problems it
may have been that guilds or unions formed to support the fishing fleet?
List may still exist some where?
On 25/03/2025 10:28, Elwyn Soutter wrote:
Ron,
I am not sure there was much formal legislation that restricted Irish
& Scots fishing boats as such. Just economic and other factors came
into play at times, often to do with the size of the boats and lack of
suitable ports and curing facilities. For example:
From: The Irish Famine
<http://www.amazon.com/The-Irish-Famine-Abrams-Discoveries/dp/0810928957>
by Peter Grey (1995):
“.../.the fisheries of Ireland, were undeveloped…/
/... A large part of the Irish coast, in the south-west, west and
north-west is perilous: there are cliffs, rocks, treacherous currents,
sudden squalls and above all the Atlantic swell surging from America
across thousands of miles of ocean. By the nineteenth century timber
was short in Ireland; in the west, practically speaking, there was
none, and fishing-boats were small, the largest being 12-15 tons. The
national boat of Ireland is the 'curragh', a frail craft, often of
considerable length, made of wicker work covered originally with
stretched hides and latterly with tarred canvas. The curragh rides
easily over the great Atlantic swells, is fast, and with four oarsmen
can cover surprising distances. /*/The Curragh was not suitable for
the use of nets in deep-sea fishing/*/, and according to an expert
writing at the time the fish off the west coast of Ireland lay many
miles out at sea in forty fathoms of water. A vessel of at least fifty
tons was needed, capable of going out for several days, laden with
nets, to face 'the frightful swell of the Atlantic'./*/If a gale blew
from the east the nearest port of refuge was Halifax, in Nova
Scotia/*/. The curraghs and small fishing-boats of the Irish were
'powerless in these circumstances'; and an inspector, reporting from
Skibbereen, wrote that /*/the failure of Irish fisheries was due to
the want of boats suitable for deep-sea fishing/*/,/
/
/
/Fishing wasn’t banned but the government didn’t build ports suitable
for larger boats that could fish in deep water, there was no salting
or canning industry (it would have competed with the English
industries) and as a result no large scale fishing industry could
develop./
/When the staple crop failed fishermen ended up unable to fish in bad
weather and with no way to preserve fish.”/
Far from being restricted, Irish, Scottish & English boats often
fished together in the 1800s. Fish such as herring migrated right
around Britain and Ireland every year, and a combined fishing fleet
from all over Britain & Ireland followed them (accompanied by an army
of fishwives who did the onshore work ie salting and filling the
barrels).Some history of that in the link below. You will see that, as
an example, the port of Arklow (in Co. Wicklow) had 150 boats that
regularly followed the fish around the Isle of Man, up the Irish Sea
through the Hebrides, along the top of Scotland and down the east side
of Scotland to Dunbar (near Edinburgh) :
pp16-29- History of Irish Sea Herring Fisheries
<https://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/ws1923/p016.htm>
pp16-29- History of Irish Sea Herring Fisheries
<https://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/ws1923/p016.htm>
The question is what fishing records exist in Ireland for the 1800s.
The answer, as with so many records in Ireland, is very few. If you
know the port where your ancestors fished from, a local museum might
be able to help, but the vessels and crew weren’t really regulated in
any way in much of the 1800s, and so no records were kept. (I don’t
think any taxes were routinely levied on fishing catches). But local
museums do sometimes have photographs (1860s onwards) and some
newspaper reports and anecdotal information.
Elwyn
On Tuesday 25 March 2025 at 13:47:54 GMT, Ron McCoy via CoTyroneList
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi All
I realise County Tyrone is land locked but have also found that many
Irish families made at least part of their family living on the Sea.
According to records the British began to limit the amount of time the
Irish/Scottish Fishing fleet could be at sea to times that British
fishing vessels were not. In line with this many Irish families around
1800's bordered fishing vessels and sailed for Canada and the USA. Does
anyone know if there was lists of Irish fishing vessels any were?
Possibly Guilds, Unions, fishing plant records, fishing taxes records?
Cheers
Ron McCoy
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