“The Commissioners have still the gratification to find, from the returns made by the local inspectors, that the number of fishermen still continues to experience a yearly increase. The gross amount, as taken from the returns of the preceding year, was 63,421 men. The gross amount, as taken from the returns of the present year, is 64,771 men, being an increase on the past year of 1350 men.”
By the same report it appeared that the number of decked vessels was 345; tonnage 9810; men 2147--half-decked vessels 769; tonnage 9457; men 3852--row-boats 9522; men 46,212.
The quantity of herrings cured for bounty in the year ending 5th April 1830, was 16,855 barrels, the bounty on which was £842 15s.
The tonnage bounty paid to vessels engaged in the cod and ling fishery was £829 10s; and the bounty on cured cod, &c. was £960.
There is not in the reports that we have seen any attempt at estimating the quantity of herrings caught, which is somewhat extraordinary, considering the accuracy with which the number of fishermen, curers, coopers, &c., was ascertained; but the quantity cured is given above.
Whilst, however, the number of fishermen employed in the fisheries generally, increased so very considerably during the period that the Irish Fishery Board was in operation, it is an extraordinary, and to us inexplicable fact, that the quantity of herrings cured for bounty in any one season never exceeded 16,855 barrels, so that even the high bounty of 4s per barrel was not sufficient to induce the Irish fishermen to cure their herrings in a proper manner. In short, the fishery board, in so far as the primary object of its formation was concerned, was totally inoperative, and the people of this country were as dependent then as now upon the Scotch curers for the requisite supply of the staple luxury of the poorer classes.
It is impossible to say to what extent the fisheries may have fallen off, if at all, in Ireland, since the abolition of the fishery board; but as the quantity of salted herrings imported into Ireland from Scotland has not materially increased since, it may be presumed that as many herrings are caught and cured now as at any former period.
The alleged decline of the Irish fisheries has by many been attributed entirely to the withdrawal of the bounties and the fishery board. But when we consider the exceedingly trifling amount of bounty paid on herrings in any one year, the discontinuance of so small a sum as £842 15s 7d (the amount in 1829-30) could not possibly have any perceptible influence upon a branch of industry which gave employment to 75,366 persons.