11 



cognizance of the Crown ; and not to multiply instances in this 

 cursory sketch of history, it is sufficient to say, that the authority 

 of government was occasionally exerted, not only to preserve 

 those private rights which royal grants had created, but to 

 redress injury to public freedom of navigation or piscary. 



Yet although the first act of the early parliaments in Dublin 

 went ' to confirm the liberties of the church and of the great 

 charter,' the vindication of these latter was but insufficiently 

 regarded. Prescriptive rights to numerous ' several' fisheries 

 grew up, and were established by subsequent patents, although 

 contrary to the provisions of the law. The surveillance of 

 government was not so rigid as to repress silent and remote 

 encroachments, nor the power of the community exerted to 

 defend their claims against a system of feudalism and chief- 

 tainry combined. Incessant war between the two races, ag- 

 gravated by the unhappy policy of refusing the laws and 

 privileges of the English pale to the nation at large, further 

 prevented the complete observance of the laws and free con- 

 stitution of England : ' silent leges inter arma.' 



A remarkable feature in the history of the river fisheries 

 of Ireland is the amount of property obtained in them by the 

 clergy and by monastic foundations. Their claim, whether 

 founded on that of the church of St. Peter, or for the sake of 

 enhancing their power in capturing an article of food, the use 

 of which is enjoined by their creed, seems to have been univer- 

 sally recognised, whether on the part of the Crown,* the nobles, 

 or the people; and to have occasioned the frequent establish- 

 ment of those means forbidden by the laws, solid weirs or 

 dams constructed across the entire beds of rivers, on the 



* In the year 1537, when the advent of the Reformation brought inquiry into 

 the possessions of the monastic establishments of Ireland, the encroachment of 

 priors and abbots on the ' king's rivers' was one of the accusations brought 

 against them. Four high commissioners were sent over to reform abuses, and 

 inquire into grievances. A jury of the city of Kilkenny presented that 



' Item The prior of Inystyoke, the abbot of Jerypont, and divers others 

 dwelling nere unto the ryver, doo make and set such weares from banke to 

 banke in the same ryver, from Inystyoke unto the mountayne of Bleme, that 

 no ferye ne bote may have their course.' Additional Manuscripts, British 

 Museum. 



Accordingly, the Act of 28 Henry VIII. was passed, reciting that where at 

 all times necessarie boates, scowtes, wherries, cottes, and other vessels, laden 

 with goods and merchandizes, have been used to passe and repasse in the king's 



rivers of the Barrow, the Noyre, the Suyr, and the Hie and yet, 



now of late, divers wilful persons, having no respect to the premisses, but more 

 rather to their own wilfulnesse, singular commodotie, and benefite, have, in 

 divers places made such weres, purpressures, ingines, streites, and other like 

 obstacles, that by no meanes any boates, &c., can conveniently passe; and 

 through which the salmon frie be cleerly destroyed, contrary to the effect and 

 purport of the statutes therein provided;' and it was enacted that any person in 

 company with the sheriff, or seneschal of the neighbouring shires, might pros- 

 trate, and break down such obstructions. A convenient gap for passage was 

 also to be made in every mill-dam. 



