Thanks Elwyn
Yes it appears over fishing was a problem, at about this time drag nets
had begun to be used and every size fish was being harvested and killed.
Also the burning of Kelp on the beaches became a problem so that small
fish had no place to find food and to hide. So yes apparently the same
problems we have now plagued our ancestors. The problem is we have not
learned from our mistakes. There is so much history to learn and most of
it is in the details I wished we had more records to look back on.
Cheers
Ron
On 25/03/2025 11:49, Elwyn Soutter wrote:
Ron,
I don’t think there was much in the way of guilds or unions in the
Irish fishing industry in the 1700s and 1800s (which I think is the
period you are interested in). These were mostly family owned boats
and I don’t think much formal certification, training or unionised
organisation was involved then.
PRONI have registers of sea fishing boats from 1869 onwards (PRONI
ref: CUS/2/6/3 and related files) but I can’t see anything earlier.
There are 1700 matches in their catalogue to the word “fishing” but
it’s mostly about salmon fishing on various estates and rivers, rather
than commercial sea fishing. I see no papers on organisations
connected with commercial fishing.
I have attached an anonymous letter, sent by “A Dungarvan Man” in the
Waterford Chronicle of 6th Jan 1847 (famine times obviously) which
describes sea fishing all around Ireland then in some detail.
Interestingly a lot of the fishermen were part-time, having small
farms as well. But from Malin Head (Co. Donegal) round to Belfast
Lough the fishermen were mostly full time. A major grumble, as was
mentioned previously, was the poor condition of many of the piers and
harbours. Most were owned by local landlords who were happy to charge
ships berthing fees but slow to improve or repair the piers, leaving
many unsuitable for fishing boats tounload at.Another factor mentioned
was that outside the herring fishing season, on-shore agricultural
work paid better than fishing, so that limited the fishing in some
areas of the country. In southeast Ireland there was reportedly a
shortage of fish, attributed to over-fishing by trawlers. (We think
overfishing a modern problem. Seems not).
Elwyn
On Tuesday 25 March 2025 at 15:07:25 GMT, Ron McCoy
<[email protected]> wrote:
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]>
<mailto:[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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