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appliances they had for fishing were the native coracles. 

 If these men could be taken on board the Scotch fishing 

 vessels and taught, in the course of time, with a little 

 assistance from the State, they would invest their money 

 in hookers and larger boats. The question was, who was 

 to instruct these men ? At present they only fished with 

 these coracles ; they went out to a bank perhaps five miles 

 off the coast, and that was the last of their enterprise. 

 The reason these boats were generally used was that they 

 would ride in about a foot of water, they passed readily 

 through the surf, and could be easily taken up and carried 

 on their backs when they got on shore. He thought Mr. 

 Walsh's idea, if it could be carried out, of having a steam 

 carrier for going from port to port to collect the fish would 

 be very good, otherwise it was often thrown on shore to 

 rot. There might be tons and tons of herrings thrown on 

 the shore, because there were no means of sending them to 

 market. Again, another missing link with regard to these 

 Irish fisheries was this, if Scotch or Cornish boats were to 

 come to the south or west coast of Ireland there might be 

 harbours of refuge as near as possible to the fishing grounds, 

 provided by and under the control of the Government, and, 

 on the other hand, there must be light tramways to connect 

 the more distant parts with the established railway termini. 

 The charts in the British section would explain why it was 

 from the month of May or June to the end of the year the 

 west coast fishery was practically not prosecuted ; the fish 

 were there and were not caught, first, because the men were 

 not there, and, secondly, because the fishing grounds were 

 so distant from any harbours. 



Mr. Blake, M.P., proposed a vote of thanks to the two 

 gentlemen who had read Papers. As an Irishman he was 

 very much interested in the fisheries, and felt much obliged 



