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Cumann na nGaedheal, sea fishing and west Galway, 1923–32
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
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In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the British government made a vigorous effort to ameliorate poverty in the west of Ireland. In 1891 the Congested Districts Board (C.D.B.) was established, with an array of special powers to promote economic development in the west. It recognised that land could only play a limited role in development due to its generally poor quality, but that sea fishing had significant potential. Nowhere was this more obvious than west Galway, where the majority of people were farmer-fishermen, living either on the islands or along a coastal belt on the mainland because fishing offered some compensation for inadequate land. Sea fishing in west Galway was, however, for the most part primitive.
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References
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14 See Report of the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries on the sea and inland fisheries of Ireland; for 1907, pt. I, xiv [Cd 4298], H.C. 1908, xiv, 16; Brody, Inishkillane, p. 75.
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17 Scott, Galway hookers, p. 69. The nobby was most popular in west Galway, and Connemara-built nobbies ranged in length from forty to forty-seven feet, and in weight from thirteen to twenty tons.
18 Irish Farmers’ Journal, 9 Aug. 1969; O’Donnell, Galway, p. 95.
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34 Report of Gaeltacht Comm., p. 47.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
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50 Memo on fishery loans (N.A.I., DM A5/483/35 E 2).
51 Ibid.; Dalgleish, British fishing, pp 20–1.
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53 Information from the Report of the Department of Fisheries for the years 1923–25 reproduced in the Cork Examiner, 8 July 1927.
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60 Report of Gaeltacht Comm., p. 47.
61 29th report of Congested Districts Board, p. 87.
62 De Courcy Ireland, Sea fisheries, p. 61.
63 Ibid., pp 90–1.
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67 See Réalt A’Deiscirt/Southern Star, 28 Apr. 1928.
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79 Ibid.
80 C.T., 21 July 1923.
81 Gaeltacht Commission: minutes of evidence taken before Coimisiún na Gaeltachta, August 30, 1925, pp 1–3.
82 Mac an Iomaire, Shores of Connemara, p. 105.
83 Gaeltacht Comm.: minutes of evidence … August 30, 1925, p. 3.
84 Robinson, Oileáin Árann, p. 15; Freeman’s Journal, 16 Sept. 1924. It should be noted that there was also altruistic Scandinavian interest in Inishmore. In 1925 one Knud Hausken, a septuagenarian with an address at Kilronan, sought permission, as a foreigner, to fish within the three-mile limit in order to tutor islanders in the ‘newest method’ (Hausken to Lawrence Moriarty, 18 May 1925 (N.A.I., DM A3/10/7)).
85 Gaeltacht Comm.: minutes of evidence…August 30,1925, pp 1, 3; Gaeltacht Comm.: minutes of evidence … August 31, 1925, p. 12.
86 Minister for Fisheries to Galway Chamber of Commerce, reproduced in C.T., 24 Nov. 1923.
87 Manchester Guardian Commercial: European reconstruction series: Ireland, sect. 3, 26 July 1923, p. 32; Réalt A’Deiscirt/Southern Star, 11 May 1929.
88 Gaeltacht Comm.: minutes of evidence …August 30,1925, p. 2.
89 See Dáil Éireann deb., v, 1441–4 (5 Dec. 1923). Figgis was participating in the debate on the third stage of the Ministers and Secretaries Bill.
90 De Courcy Ireland, Sea fisheries, p. 97.
91 Dáil Éireann deb., v, 1442 (5 Dec. 1923).
92 Ibid.
93 Report of Gaeltacht Comm., pp 38–9.
94 Dáil Éireann deb., viii, 1899, 1906 (22 July 1924).
95 Ibid.
96 Irish Land Comm., pp 8–10.
97 Moriarty, Lawrence to Doolin, Walter, 14 Oct. 1929 (N.A.I., DF S027/0023/29).Google Scholar
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99 Ibid.
100 Ibid., p. 46; Saorstát Éireann. Census of population 1926, cited in New hist. Ire., vii, p. 68.
101 Dáil ireann deb., xxiii, 737 (2 May 1928); Gaeltacht Commission: statement of government policy on recommendations of the commission, p. 26. Both Lynch and the government refer to the loan scheme under art. 67.
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109 Tipperaryman and Limerick Recorder, 10 Dec. 1927; Feardorcha Ó Conaill, Dublin Broadcasting Station, to Diarmuid Ó hÉigeartaigh, 10 Nov. 1927 (N.A.I., West Coast Disaster National Relief Fund (henceforth, W.C.D.N.R.F.), Box 3, G2, 13W); James Ferran to President Cosgrave, 5 Nov. 1927 (ibid., W.C.D.N.R.F., Box 3,12).
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111 John Healy, W.C.D.N.R.F., to Mgr McAlpine, 10 Dec. 1927 (N.A.I., W.C.D.N.R.F., Box 3, MC3, 15W); Villiers-Tuthill, Twelve Bens, p. 171. The committee also included Fr John Diskin, parish priest on Inishbofin.
112 Dependants’ assessment forms, Rossadillisk no. 3, 17 Nov. 1927, and facsimile of ‘Particulars of tentative payments to dependents for March, 1928’, 29 Feb. 1928 (N.A.I., W.C.D.N.R.F., Box 3, MC3, 15W).
113 Report of the sea and inland fisheries for the years 1926,1927 and 1928, P 304, p. 33.
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116 Feeney, Cleggan Bay, pp 48–9.
117 Ibid., p. 33; interview with Dr Ciarán Ó Cuaig of Kilkieran, County Galway (2 June 2004).
118 Rossadillisk no. 3 (N.A.I., W.C.D.N.R.F., Box 3, MC3, 15W).
119 Feeney, Cleggan Bay, pp 17–18.
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127 Ibid.; de Courcy Ireland, Sea fisheries, pp 96–7.
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132 C.T., 29 Mar. 1924.
133 Dalgleish, British fishing, p. 32.
134 Réalt A’Deiscirt/Southern Star, 14 Mar. 1928.
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136 See O’Flaherty, Skerrett, p. 130, for a literary portrayal.
137 Gaeltacht Comm.: minutes of evidence … August 31, 1925, p. 6.
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144 Cork Examiner, 20 May 1929.
145 Irish Times, 20 May 1929. The by-election had been occasioned by the death of the Fianna Fáil T.D. Samuel Holt.
146 Cork Examiner, 20 May 1929.
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149 The Sea Fisheries Association of Saorstát Éireann, Limited: rules, 1930; Seanad Éireann deb., xiv, 331 (18 Dec. 1930); C.T., 1 Mar. 1930.
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155 S.F.A. rules, p. 8.
156 O’Donnell, Galway, p. 1.
157 Gaeltacht Comm.: minutes of evidence … August 31, 1925, p. 7.
158 ‘Preliminary draft of the Sea Fisheries Co-operative Association Bill’, 24 Aug. 1929 (N.A.I., DM Al/64/35); memo on sea fisheries of Saorstát, 20 July 1933 (ibid., DT S 2301).
159 ‘Sea Fisheries Co-operative Association Bill’ (ibid., DM Al/64/35).
160 Ibid.; Gaeltacht Comm.: statement of policy, p. 26 (art. 66).
161 C.T., 25 May 1929; memo on sea fisheries (N.A.I., DT S 2301).
162 Draft of proposals for sea fishing, 1 May 1929 (ibid., DM Al/64/35).
163 Memo on fishery loans (ibid., DM A5/483/35 E 2).
164 Dáil Éireann deb., xxxviii, 2491 (4 June 1931).
165 Memo from Aodh Ó Brolcháin to J. J. McElligott, and schedules A, B, C, 13 Oct. 1931 (N.A.I..DMA5/483/35D).
166 Memo from Ó Brolcháin to McElligott, 2 May 1932 (ibid., DM A5/483/35 El); statements of sums proposed to be remitted or written-off as irrecoverable under the Fisheries (Revision of Loans) Act, 1931, July 1936 (ibid., DM A5/632/47).
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169 Between 1923 and 1932 the Helga, rechristened the Muirchú (‘Sea-Hound’), remained the only dedicated patrol boat, and the debate on the Sea Fisheries (Protection) Bill was suspended by the 1932 general election. In nine years, the Muirchú made just nine recorded visits to west Galway despite the fact that its captain, David Thompson, had to come ashore to pursue foreign-vessel-incursion convictions (Dáil Éireann deb., xl, 2825–6 (16 Dec. 1931); log of the Muirchú, 30 June 1923–31 Dec. 1932 (N.A.I., Mercantile Marine Office, ships’ agreements, crew and logs, V7B-19-9-V7B-20-18). Assistant Inspector of Fisheries G. P. Farran was a marine biologist who had been recruited by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction and retained by Lynch’s department, and he did include a study of herring shoals in his general study of marine zoology (Farran, G. P., ‘The herring fishery in Eire, 1921–1944’ in Journal of the Department of Agriculture, xxxi (1946), pp 1–36Google Scholar; Thom’s official directory … 1926 (Dublin, 1926), p. 763; Brunicardi, Sea Hound, pp 107–9).
170 Kerryman, 13 Feb. 1932; Cullen, Joan M., ‘Patrick J. Hogan, T.D. Minister for Agriculture, 1922–1932: a study of a leading member of the first government of independent Ireland’ (Ph.D. thesis, Dublin City University, 1993), pp 21-2.Google Scholar
171 Dooley, Terence, ‘The land for the people’: the land question in independent Ireland (Dublin, 2004), p. 62.Google Scholar
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