350 Proceedings of the Royal Irinh Academy. 



to him by old fishermen at from £30 to £100, so that the loss of this 

 industry must have told considerably on a poor community such as 

 this. The primitive method which he found in use on his visit to the 

 islands he describes in full as it was explained by Michael Halioran, 

 the 'king'^ of Inishshark, a veteran harpooner, who had just killed 

 his nineteenth fish a few days before. 



"I had been told that these sun-fish generally took from sixteen 

 to eighteen hours, and frequently longer, to kill ; in fact, I have heard 

 it sometimes took two days, so naturally felt considerable interest in 

 the gear used for the purpose. The king brought with him his trusty 

 harpoon, which, to my mind, looked a most antiquated arrangement, 

 especially designed to cut out of a fish, instead of holding it. I could 

 not see a whale-boat or anything like one, so inquired where the boat 

 was, and was shown an ordinary square-sterned boat, about 16 feet in 

 the keel, which had nailed on her starboard bow a piece of wood 

 about 1 foot long, with three small notches, or scores, barely half an 

 inch deep, cut in it. I found out that these notches or scores were all 

 they had to run the line through, and that when a boat fastened a 

 fish, it was a pulling match between our friend the shark on one hand, 

 and sixteen men on the other, a regular case of ' pull devil, pull 

 baker ' ! Such a thing as a bollard head to take a turn of the line 

 round seems never to have entered their heads." 



In addition to fishing and farming, the other occupations are fish- 

 curing at the station recently established by the landlord, Cyril Allies, 

 Esq., J.P., who resides on the island, and personally superintends it, 

 and the trades, represented by a boat-builder, a blacksmith, a shoe- 

 maker who imports his leather from the mainland, a tailor, who still 

 adheres to the old method of measuring his clients without a tape, 

 using instead a sheet of paper, on which the several lengths are 

 recorded by "snips," or notches cut with the scissors; there is one 

 weaver who makes use of a rather archaic form of hand-loom, four 

 men who, on occasion, act as sawyers, extemporising a saw-pit in the 

 nearest convenient spot by the aid of trestles, and using to mark their 

 lines a cord blackened with the ashes of straw or shavings, and finally, 

 a fiddler. 



^ In answer to an inquiry of mine relative to the position of king, Mr. Myles 

 Joyce, National Teacher of Bofin, writes: — "The title of king is not hereditary 

 in the island. There is at present a man removed something beyond his neighbours 

 in the way of education and position, who is, par excellence, the king ; and to 

 whom all pei'sons who want any information about the island or its history must 

 apply." 



