56 THE UNAPPRECIATED FISHER FOLK. 
reports that great irregularities had occurred in carrying 
out the registration of boats and vessels since 1842, so much 
so indeed as to render the returns of no practical value. “It 
was the practice some years ago,” says the Inspectors in 
their report for 1876, “to register and return, as boats and 
vessels engaged in the fisheries, every boat in the different 
divisions, whether used for cutting seaweed, carrying 
passengers, turf, sand, or other commodities, fishing or 
pleasure, and a crew was assigned to each without ascer- 
taining if such actually existed, no proper comparison can 
therefore be made between the numbers actually engaged 
in sea fishing during the past and former years.” Since 
1846 the number of boats, and, of course, the number of 
persons employed in their management as well, have steadily 
declined ; in 1856 the fleet of boats numbered 51,069, 
manned by 48,774 men and boys; in 1866 the numbers 
respectively were 9444 (boats) and 40,663 (crews). By the 
year 1876 the reduction was still more marked, the num- 
bers being as follows: Craft of all descriptions engaged in 
fishing for sale 5965, with crews numbering 22,773 men, and 
920 boys. 
In looking into the details of Irish fishing as conducted to- 
day, we find some reliable statistics of the number of boats 
taking part in the herring and mackerel fisheries, the latter 
in particular being a growing industry in the Irish seas, the 
importance of which has been largely divined by the local 
fishermen. At the various herring fishing stations, we find 
a total of 734 Irish boats engaged between May and 
December, the number of the crew in each boat not being 
given, but there would probably not be less than 4000 in all, 
men and boys together. The number of Irish vessels taking 
part in the capture of mackerel in 1882 was 263 ; as against 
327 English and Manx and 25 Scottish boats. In 1876, the 
