MEMORIES OF THE FISHING INDUSTRY IN DONEGAL
MEMORIES OF THE FISHING INDUSTRY
In my schooldays, all of the fishing was done by drift-netting: herring in the winter, salmon in the summer and lobster fishing in the months of May, August and September. The drift net fishing was carried out by half-decker boats, about 30ft. in length and driven with Bolinder engines. The older generation will still remember the distinctive sound of the Bolinder engines, on a calm evening, as the boats made their way to the fishing grounds. Most boats at the time were named Pride of …, either after the townland or island where their owner originated. Lobster fishermen hauled their pots twice a day, morning and evening, with the maximum of pots fished, being around forty, the most that could be stored in a sailing yawl when under full sail.
Another familiar activity at the time, was the sight of the Cope boats fishing in the local bays, in the spring and in the harvest. These boats ranged in size from 50ft. to 70ft. and fished for plaice and ray.
The Fifties heralded many changes in the industry as boats got bigger. Connie Devenney took delivery of the first new fifty four footer, the Ros Mhuire, to be followed by Joe McGinley with the Fifty six foot Ard Mhacha. Both boats are still in use today. In 1954 C.D.D. and H.J. Nolan contracted a pair of Scotch ringers to land herring into Kincasslagh, with the capacity to land 320 cran per landing. All of the half-deckers were still operating, but by now ring-netting had taken over, and the shoals of herring had moved on to the Rosbeg and Glen Head areas.
The Pattern of Salmon fishing had not changed much from the forties, except that monafiliment netting had replaced the hemp and flax nets. This eliminated the need for “barking” the old nets, a procedure of treating them, which had to be carried out twice a season.
In the sixties, the herring fishing changed again, with mid-water trawling taking over from the drifting and ring-netting. The shoals only came into shallow waters after a storm and moved into deep water again soon as the boats started to fish. Mid-water trawling now enabled the boats to fish at any depth. It was during this period that the fishermen got together, and formed a Co-op to market their fish. The Burtonport Fisherman’s Co-op is still in existence today and has gone from strength to strength. Lobster fishing remained the same, except for the introduction of a new French pot which was shaped like a barrel and had a big eye for the red lobster. The pots were now hauled by winches and not manually as in earlier years.
In the seventies, a new fishing had come into play, the mackerel, which came into our bays in huge shoals with no infrastructure in place to process these fish, 75% of all fish landed went onto intervention and were dumped in bogs or back into the sea.
The eighties and nineties were decades of the “Super Trawlers”, huge boats that can stay at sea in all kinds of weather. Many new factories were built in this period to handle the huge volume of fish that these boats were able to land. (This fishing lasted for about eight years, after which time, stocks again became depleted, and boats were once sold off).
With the crayfish stock almost nil and lobster fishing very poor, many men left the fishing industry to work onshore in fish factories and in more secure employment.
Looking towards the end of the century, with all fish species in decline, greater efforts will have to be made, particularly in spawning season to protect spawning fish. This may cause inconvenience in the short term, but will help encure, that in years to come, there is a fishing industry to hand down, to future generations of young people.
