Browne — Ethnography of Inishhofin and Inishshark. 349- 



but a few years ago the ordinary means of lighting the houses was a 

 rude open lamp, filled with oil extracted from the livers of fish, and 

 having a piece of peeled rush for a wick. 



Kelp-burningj was formerly one of the industries of the islands, 

 but of late years it declined rapidly, and is now practically extinct. 

 As to the cause of this decay of a formerly profitable source of income, 

 very different accounts are given, some alleging the poor quality of 

 the weed ; others that they were not fairly treated in selling ; and 

 others again that it does not pay as well as the fish-curing. 



The fish most taken are sea-bream, glassan (a sort of pollock), 

 mackerel, turbot, and plaice, used mostly for home consumption ; cod 

 and ling, which are cured at the fish-curing station for exportation,, 

 and oil extracted from their livers ; also large quantities of crabs and 

 lobsters, which are taken to Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare, from which they 

 are forwarded to the English market. The boat used for conveying 

 them is of peculiar construction, and has a large salt-water tank 

 amidships, in which the lobsters are kept alive. The lobster-pots are 

 of the usual type. There is nothing unusual about their ordinary 

 method of fishing, except that the Inishbofin men, as mentioned iu 

 a footnote to the account of that island in the Memoir of the 

 Geological Survey, already alluded to, do not follow the shoals of fish 

 around the western headland, but carry their boats across the narrow 

 isthmus in which Lough Bofiji is situated. 



The pursuit of the " sun-fish," or basking-shark (Selache maxima), 

 was formerly a source of considerable profit to the islanders, but has 

 been almost altogether abandoned of late years owing to the decline in 

 the price of the oil, and partly, it is said, to the loss of several lives on 

 one occasion when a boat was charged and overturned by a wounded 

 fish, also to the partial disappearance for some years of the sharks. 



The season for this enterprise is from April until the end of June, 

 and in that time large numbers of these fish were taken formerly, and 

 some are still killed from time to time. Mr. G. H. Kinahan, to whom 

 I am indebted for several notes relative to the condition of the islands 

 some years ago, says : — " The sun-fish fishing was considerable in my 

 time (1870). I have seen strings of seven and nine fish ; when caught, 

 they towed them into the harbour, cut out the liver, and left the 

 carcass to rot, or be eaten by the pigs ; the stench in the harbour was 

 something to remember." A very full description of the fishing is 

 given by Sir H. W. Gore-Booth in a recent article. He states that 

 the value of the oil (from eight to twelve petroleum barrels full) 

 obtained from the liver of one of these fish has been variously estimated 



