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COUNTY CORK. 141
galloxi. Hie fish appeai-ed first in Berehaven, and came up the Bay in about three days
after. The wind being strong from the N.W., aiid the sea extremely rough.
Mr. Corkery thinks the Sprats are still in the Bay in great abundance, but in too deep
water, not less than thirty fathoms. 1'hey stretch across the Bay between Whiddy and
Garnish, and up to Sheelhawn. Trip seans, or deep sea tuck nets, may perhaps be used
for taking them in the deep water, but there are none such in Bantry fit for Sprats, nor is
it possible to apply that description of net to the Sprat fishery as easily as to the Herring
fishery. Sprats requiring a much smaller mesh, the netting would be to heavy for trip
seans. During the late fishery, there were twelve seans at work, each took on the average
about eight boat loads of Sprats.
There was no want of demand. If fifty times the quantity had been taken, the demand Demand.
for the intei'ior of the country would have increased in full proportion.
There is now in Bantry a tolerable supply of salt, about 300 tons; the price is 32s. per Salt.
ton for Liverpool salt, and 40s. for St. Ubes. If the fisheries were to continue it would
stand but a short time.
The people were not prepared for the fish when it arrived this time. .
Manj' were obliged to go to Kinsale to procure netting. Great complaints are made of -Nettmg.
the quality. Extensive depots for netting in large quantities, would be most desireable on
different parts of the coast. Mr. Richard Young thinks that encouragement should be given
to such establishments, most particularly in Bantry.
Mr. Young thinks loans by no means desireable, calculated to increase mischievous!}^ Loans to Fisher-
fishing craft, and to bring into the trade small farmers who should be otherwise employed, men.
and from whom the most exorbitant rents are exacted for the ground contiguous to the sea.
Mr. Jenkins on the contrary, thinks that the means of obtaining small loans occasionally,
would be of the greatest service. He knows a man who having a hooker, is unable to go
to sea for want of twenty fathoms of hauser.
Bounties were, as Mr. Richard Young thinks, most mischievous to the fishery, and demo- Bounties.
ralizing to the receivers. In one year, £1700 bounty was paid on Whiddy Island. In
other places, the agents of the proprietors watched the fishermen, and took up the bounty
as it was paid.
Mr. Y'oung thinks any improvement in the condition of the people is utterly hopeless with¬
out a poor law, and without measures giving to the cultivator of the soil, either the cer¬
tainty of the enjoyment, or of the full value of their improvements. Bounties and loans,
and all such aids are but miserable expedients, calculated to increase the evil, and to pro¬
long the continuance of the present defective system.
An acre of land with a comfortable house, and the certainty of the enjoyment of it by a Land.
permanent tenure, and at a moderate rent, would be better for the fishermen than all the
bounties or other encouragement that Government could give.
The unrestricted and indiscriminate use of the trammel net at all seasons of the year. Trammel Fishery,
and at every hour of the day and night when it can be used, prevails at present to a most
mischievous degree in the Bay of Bantry. They totally destroy the line fishery—they are
increased in number threefold—the owners of them disregard all former regulations—they
are set both by day and night.^—{Joseph
The dead fish in them stink the ground {Daniel Harrington^
The Hake fly off from them when they see the Hake dead in the trammels ( Thomas
Seahurn.y
They were the cause of the Sprats leaving the shoal water this year, because while the
Sprats were abundant, the weather was so severe that the trammel nets could not be set;
hut when the weather became fine the trammels were used, and the Sprats immediately
vanished (Mr. H. Yoiincj.)
No complaints have lately been made against this mode of fishing, because it was gene¬
rally believed that since the extinction of the Fishery Board, there was neither a law to re¬
strain them, nor any department to whom a complaint could be made. The regulations at
fooi'^ for the Government of the trammel fishery adopted in 1828, and approved of by the
existing establishment, gave very general satisfaction to all parties, and were very strictly
observed for some years, but they have latterly been wholly disregarded, and I as well as
others engaged in the sean fishery, have lately been very willing to abandon the trade if
we could obtain purchasers for our craft. I never remember more favourable prospects for
a fishery than there are at present, but if the trammels be not restrained, no good will be
done—(Mr. R. Young.)
* At a meeting of the several persons interested in the Fisheries of Bantry Bay, and the Coast adja¬
cent, held at the Fishery Office in Bantry, on Saturday the 21st of June, 1828:
The following Regulations were unanimously approved of, and are hereby adopted, as the conditions
upon which Trammel Nets, duly licensed, may be permitted to be used within the Bay of Bantry,
pursuant to the 5th sec., 7th Geo. IV., cap. 39:—
general regulations.
Ist.—That no Trammel Net of any description, shall ever be set before the first day of October in
each season, and that their use shall be discontinued after the 1st of March.
2nd—That no Trammel Net shall be set, or allowed to remain in the water between sun-rise and
sun-set.
3rd—That no Net of any description shall be used on the Sabbath, or from sun-set on Saturday
evening till sun-rise on Monday morning.
srecinc limits fob trammel nets in bantry bay.
No Trammel Net shall be set within a line drawn from Lousye Castle, across to the Bull Rock, no
