THE INSHORE FISHERIES 185 



The reports of the Commissioners of the Irish Fisheries (1819-30) 

 contain much interesting information as to the condition of the 

 fisheries during the operation of the bounty system. In 1822 there 

 was a famine in Ireland which reduced the people in the southern 

 and western districts to a condition of unparalleled misery, relief 

 being given by employing the people on fishery harbour construc- 

 tion. In 1823 the Commissioners reported " that were it not for 

 the impulse given to a numerous and wretched coast population by 

 the bounties granted by the present fishery enactments the value 

 of the Irish fisheries might have yet remained in obscurity, and the 

 energies of many thousands of the coast population of Ireland 

 have still continued in the same state of inactivity in which the 

 present enactments found them, and from which the bounty system 

 has principally tended to rescue them." Before the bounty system 

 had been in operation for five years it had excited a spirit of 

 industry answering to every reasonable expectation, and orderly 

 conduct was introduced where previously only lawless violence 

 existed. 



In 1824 the general condition of the labouring poor of Ireland 

 was wretched in the extreme, as they were without any visible means 

 of support, and the peace of the country was only maintained by an 

 insurrection act and a large military force. On the other hand, the 

 coast population were tranquil, and the fisheries afforded a source 

 of employment, food and naval strength.^ 



In this year Parliament reduced the bounties considerably, in 

 spite of the protests of the Commissioners, and in 1829 the bounties 

 ceased. From 1809 to 1829 Scotland received in bounties for her 

 fisheries £1,189,744, Ireland in the same period for the same purpose 

 not more than £330,000. 



In 1830 the Irish Fishery Department became nominally a branch 

 of the Board of Inland Navigation, actually it was extinguished and 

 nothing was done by the State to encourage the sea fisheries of 

 Ireland until 1842, when the management was transferred to the 

 Board of Works. Although the Board of Works only assisted the 

 fisheries by means of grants for the construction of approved piers 

 and harbours, by 1846 there was some recovery, and the fishermen 

 and boats numbered 113,073 and 19,883 respectively. Then came 

 the famine of 1847 and 1848, which the fishermen suffered to full 

 extent . "So broken down by want were thousands of the fishermen 

 that they were physically incapable of proceeding to sea." The 

 number of men engaged in the coast fisheries declined rapidly, and 

 in 1849 there were only 71,505 men and 18,100 boats. For the 



' Report of the Commisioners oj the Irish Fisheries, Respecting the Discontinuance 

 of Bounties. Dublin, 6tli March, 1824. 



