18 



Innistiogue possessed the several fishery of the Nore, co-terminous with 

 its lands, but the commonalty of the town were accustomed to fish 

 in it. Inguisitiones Lagenice. 



The Nore appears to have been more appropriated by private persons 

 than any other large stream in Ireland. 



RIVER SLANEY. The old titles of the landowners along the tidal 

 portion of this river to the fishery are worth notice, as a matter of 

 curiosity : these rights have ceased by disuse. Traces of stake-weirs 

 are to be seen in a few places at low-water. Roche, of Artramont, 

 owned one of these weirs. A prize fish was payable every Wednesday 

 to the lord of the manor of Carrigmenan, At some drafts it was 

 customary to take up to the landlord the best fish taken each tide, or a 

 salmon could be claimed and taken out of each boat as ' duty fish.' 



CHAPTER III. 



THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY POLICY OF LEGISLATION AND 



ADMINISTRATION. 



THE Fisheries of Ireland, both Sea and Inland, having been 

 brought prominently before the notice of Parliament in the year 

 1835, as requiring remedy for various evils and for their unsatis- 

 factory condition, and as offering by their improvement favour- 

 able means for relieving the wants of the country, in the recess 

 of that year a Commission was directed to the officers of the 

 Board of Public Works,* for the institution of an inquiry into 

 their state, the laws affecting, and the means and expediency of 

 extending and improving them. 



The " Suggestions" or instructions as to the course of the 

 investigation, and which it is expressly stated were to serve as 

 a guide for the inquiry, and as a basis for the report, were for- 

 warded to the Commissioners by Lord Morpeth. These sugges- 

 tions are drawn up in a comprehensive and statesmanlike man- 

 ner. The investigators were to examine into the actual state of 

 the subject, to collect all the information that experience and 

 the history of past times could afford, and to report the result. 

 The following passages and extracts will show the general prin- 

 ciples held out to the Committee of Inquiry as those that were 

 to direct the policy of future legislation for, and the adminis- 

 tration of, our Sea and River fisheries. 



With respect to the first named " the object being to catch 

 as great a quantity of fish as can be taken, without the risk of 

 producing scarcity in succeeding years," searching investigation 

 was to be made as to experience of the regulations adopted at 







* The following gentlemen were associated with the board for the purpose* 

 of the inquiry : Charles A. Walker, Esq., M.P. for Wexford, who acted as chair- 

 man; Sir Charles Morgan, M.D. ; J. R. Barry, John Jagoe, Henry Townsend. 

 William Stanley, and Henry K. Paine, esquires. 



