138 



as Lowestoft and Harwich. The fishermen on the west 

 coast of Scotland, Campbeltown, and Loch Fyne, were 

 accustomed to fish in the same way, but of late years those 

 fisheries had been failing ; some of the men at Campbel- 

 town owned thirty or forty boats, and they were prepared 

 to try the west coast of Ireland, but who was to induce 

 them to do so ? The fish salesmen would not attend them 

 there until they had proved the fisheries would be success- 

 ful. Therefore there seemed to be a missing link, and the 

 question was, who was to promote the general movement of 

 fishing boats attending the west coast of Ireland ? The 

 whole coast was peopled with hardy fishermen, who, as 

 Mr. Brady had said, were remarkable for their honesty and 

 hardihood ; he wished he could say as much for their 

 persistent industry ; but these men were very teachable, 

 and if you had Scotch boats along the west coast of Ireland 

 for the present month up to the end of September or the 

 middle of October they would no doubt be glad to take 

 one or two native fishermen as pilots, who would in that 

 way pick up a little technical education, and would be 

 instructed in the art of following fish to a considerable 

 distance from the coast Last week he was talking with 

 some men of this class off Clew Bray near Achil Point, the 

 furthest on the west coast of Ireland. He found there the 

 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 



