Tag Archives: fishing

Fishermen

On Sunday evening a conflict took place between the fishermen on the river above Thomond-bridge, Limerick, which at one time threatened very serious consequences. It appears that since the interruption to their fishing at the Island point some of the long net fishermen procured short or snap nets, and commenced fishing lower down the river. The short net men did not like this intrusion, and it would appear that no amicable feeling prevailed between the parties. After nine o’clock in the evening the short net men put out their nets, when the others attacked them; the boats fouled each other, the men commenced to fight, and some stones were thrown over the parapet of the bridge which did injury to the cots of the short net men. The presence of Constable Frawley and some of the police tended somewhat to repress their disposition to violence, but it is apprehended that further and more serious collisions may take place between the parties.

Saunders’s News-Letter 15 June 1855

Down the Suir

Cheekpoint

Andrew Doherty runs the Waterford Harbour tides’n’tales blog which, starting with a focus on the traditional fishing community of Cheekpoint, has broadened out to take in the whole of the Suir estuary and a few other things besides. As he says

My unending passion is researching and writing about our way of life and more fully understanding the history and heritage that surrounds us here.

Before the tide went out

Andrew has now written a book, Before the tide went out, and it will be launched at Jack Meade’s on Friday 20 October 2017 at 7.30pm.

From the blurb:

Andrew Doherty vividly brings you into the heart of a now practically vanished fishing community, deep into the domestic lives of the people making a hard and precarious living from the river, only 6 miles from Waterford city centre. You share his affectionate memories of the local people and the fun that was to be had as a child playing in and around the fishing boats and nets on a busy quayside.

He also takes you out on the river, on bright and beautiful days, and on wild and dangerous nights, which he describes with a naturally story telling turn of phrase. You feel the cold, the misery of sea-soaked clothing and the pain of raw hands hauling on fish-scaled nets.

But what keeps you going is what kept him going for 15 years, the camaraderie and pride of spending time with brave, skilled and wise fishermen who could be grumpy, hilarious, sometimes eccentric, but never
boring.

Update: to buy the book see Andrew’s page here.

 

Eel fishing

In Foreign Parts.

h/t Tyler Cowen

Into the west

An unidentified sister-ship of the MGWR Royal Canal steamer Rambler went fishing in the west of Ireland ….

Ireland’s shortest canal?

What may have been Ireland’s shortest canal was at Banagher in Co Offaly; it was used to carry eels to the railway station. Here is a brief account of it.