Sreland, 
246 SHAG TIME ORUNE Clafs IV. 
commerce is far lefs lucrative than it was in former 
times, partly owing to the great encreafe of the 
Newfoundland fifhery, and partly to the general re- 
laxation of the difcipline ef abftinence in the Ro- 
mifo church. 
Ireland (particularly the north) abounds with this 
fifh: the moft confiderablé fifhery is at Cranna, on 
the river Bax, about a mile and an half from Cole- 
raine. When I made the tour of that hofpitable 
kingdom in 1754, it was rented by a neighboring 
seneaah for 620/. a yeat, who affured me that — 
the tenant, his predeceffor; gave 16007 per ann: . 
and was a much greater gainer by the bargain for 
the reafons before-mentioned, and on account of 
the number of poachers who deftroy the fifh in the 
fence months. 
The mouth of this river faces the north, and is 
_ finely fituated to receive the fifh that roam along 
the coaft, in fearch of an irlet into fome frefh wa- 
ter; as they do all along that end of the kingdom 
which oppofes itfelf to the northern oceam. , We 
have feen near Ballicaftle, nets placed in the fea at 
the foot of the promontories that jut into it, which 
the falmon ftrike into as they are wariderinig clofe to 
fhore, and numbers are taken by that method. 
In the Ban they Gfh with ficts eighteen fcore 
yards long, and are continually Aten night and 
day the whale feafon, which we think laits about 
four months; two fets of fixteen men each alter- 
nately relieving one another. The beft drawing is 
when the tide is coming in: we were told that at a 
finele draught there were once eight hundred and 
ae fifh taken A few 
