6 THE FISHERIES. 



nastic institutions — being annexed to abbeys, and 

 other religious houses. The weirs of Lismore, of 

 Gill Abbey, and many others, were amongst the an- 

 cient possessions of the Church. The Abbots of 

 Mellifont possessed three weirs upon the Boyne, 

 and upon a writ of Monstrans de droit, in the reign 

 of Edward III., their title was held good. St. 

 Mary's Abbey at Dublin, enjoyed a special grant 

 of fishery in the waters of the Avon Liffey ; and in 

 the year 1220, the lordly Prior of Kilmainham had 

 to submit to an inquiry, respecting his title to the 

 structure, which forms the present Island-bridge 

 weir. At Limerick, in the recent trials respecting 

 the title to the great lax- weir and Fishery, now the 

 property of the Limerick Corporation, the title was 

 deduced from a charter granted by King John, in 

 the year 1202, to William de Bradosa. These, not 

 to mention numerous other instances, will be quite 

 sufficient to carry back the title of those obnoxious 

 purprestures, at all events, into a pretty remote an- 

 tiquity. 



But it was objected, in 1842, that these charter 

 weirs, and ancient fisheries, being situated in the 

 tideway, were prohibited by Magna Cliarta, or were 

 illegal at common law. We cannot admit either of 

 these propositions. The Kidel prohibited by Magna 

 Charta is defined by Coke to mean an " open wear," 

 and was evidently an engine of a transitory nature, 

 used as a fixture in the tidal parts of large rivers 

 (as instanced in the Thames and Medway), which 



