FISHING STATIONS— IRELAND. 367 



ill 3 or 4 feet water, were most capable pf exercising it. 

 If the protection of the young fish were intended, it is 

 certainly remarkable that a byelaw should have been 

 made so well adapted to continue their destruction. 



We understand, however, that an alteration of the 

 byelaw has been made this year (1873), and that the 

 prohibition now applies to trawlers of more than 10 

 tons. We hope therefore better counsels are beginning 

 to prevail, and that, in time, if any restriction at all 

 be considered necessary, it will be to the small boats 

 instead of to the large ones. 



Dunmore, on the south side of Waterford Harbour, 

 and just within the entrance, is the station for the 

 deep-sea trawlers; and in 1873 there were eleven 

 smacks w^orking from that town. They fish on the 

 Saltee ground, to which we have previously referred, 

 and in the outer part of the harbour ; they also work 

 on the Nymph Bank,^ which lies some 30 or 40 miles 

 off the land, and extends for a considerable distance in 

 a south-westerly direction. There are difficulties, how- 

 ever, in working with trawlers on this ground on ac- 

 count of its distance, unless some organization for send- 

 ing the fish to market be adopted ; and anything like 

 fishing companies seems to have as little chance of 

 success in Ireland as elsewhere. There appears to be 

 a good supply of fish on this ground, but we under- 

 stand there is some danger of the trawl-nets being 

 damaged by scattered rocks in some parts of it. Taking 

 the bank generally, it is no doubt capable of being 



^ Mr. Fraser mentions tliat in 1726 a proposal was made by Mr. William 

 Doyle, Hydrograplier, for supplying the large English markets " with fish 

 preserved in well-boats, from the southern coast of Ireland, and, particularly, 

 from a fishing ground he states he had discovered, unto which he gave the 

 name of Nymph Bank, from a vessel called the ' Nymph,' which he employed 

 in the examination of this fishing ground." — Review of Domestic Fisheries, 

 p. 4. 1818. 



