372 THE SEA FISHERIES OF IRELAND. 



the fresh fish markets of the east coast and bear the hardships of the 

 Atlantic storms in the winter season, the law was relaxed and permission 

 was again given to supply fresh fish to the Dublin market. 



Under the bounties the number of men engaged in the Irish fisheries in- 

 creased from 36,159 in 1820, to 64,771 in 1829. This was, of course, a great 

 period of activity in the fisheries, but the inflation brought about by the 

 payment in bounties of ^^"87,989 of Government money made no lasting im- 

 piession : the prosperity was fictitious because it depended on an artificial 

 market, and there was a complete collapse when the bounties .ceased in 

 1829, and the fisheries had to come down to their commercial value. 



It may not be out of place here, to contrast the creation of an artificial 

 market by public expenditure, with the policy of later days, which by 

 expending public money on railways, brought the natural markets withm 

 the reach of the fishery. 



The Commissioners' Report of 1835 describes a sad state of things, every- 

 thing on the decline, the curing houses going into ruin, and the large 

 decked boats, brought into existence by bounties, rotting in the harbours. 

 In these days, however, other influences profoundly though indirectly 

 affecting the Irish fisheries were at work, and it is only by glancing at these 

 circumstances that the various fluctuations which followed can be thoroughly 

 understood. 



In the sixteenth century the potato was introduced into Ireland, and, as 

 is generally understood, was planted by Sir Walter Raleigh in the South of 

 Ireland, on the banks of the Blackwater. Up to that period the Irish 

 peasants appear to have been a flesh-eating people. They lived, as contem- 

 porary writers tell us, on the produce of their flocks and herds. Campion 

 writing expressively, if not elegantly, in 1571, says that " oatmale and 

 butter they crame together. They drink whey, milke, and beef broth. 

 Flesh they devoure without bread. Corne, such as they have, they give to 

 their horses." He further says they " swill in aquavitas by quarts and 

 pottles." With such a complete menu, varied in some places by an abund- 

 ance of salmon, sea-fishing was an unnecessary employment, and could not 

 have been attractive to a population mainly pastoral. This, I think, 

 accounts for the sea fisheries being left in the hands of Spaniards or 

 Dutchmen, who were encouraged by an over-sea demand for the products 

 of the Irish fisheries. 



For a long time the potato was only cultivated as a garden product, as a 

 delicacy for the few ; not until the eighteenth century did it become the 

 food of the people. The population of Ireland, then about three and a-half 

 millions, sprang up by leaps and bounds, until, in 1840, it was over eight 

 millions. The " butter, beef broth and flesh " were now a thing of the past. 

 Such living might have been possible for three million people, when cattle 

 were not turned into money by a cross-channel trade ; but it was clearly 

 impossible for the potato-eating millions which had come into existence. 

 All the resources of the country had now to be drawn on, and, as fish and 

 potatoes go well together, the Irish sea fisheries began for the first time to 

 be worked with vigour by the native population. In the early days of the 

 nineteenth century this demand, as well as the bounties described above, 

 helped to keep up the fine fleets of fishing boats which sailed from the Irish 

 harbours, and the hardy race of men which formed their crews. Cod, ling, 

 hake, and herrings were caught and cured for the local demand, and to add 



