Ireland’s sea fisheries 1400 1600 (2023) looks at the rise and fall of sea fishing around Ireland, starting in the late 1300s and ending in the early 1600s. In the introduction, the author, Hayes, explains that past research focused too much on local stories and scattered records. His intention with this book is to give a clearer and more complete picture using modern digital tools. As an introduction, I found it heavy going, but it’s worth pushing through.

In the first chapter, Hayes describes the development of the sea fisheries, which I found very interesting, as he takes a tour of the era covered around Ireland’s coast. He highlights both rural and urban fishing areas, and as you might expect, some fascinating details on Waterford, New Ross and the harbour area.

Ireland’s sea fisheries 1400 1600

Chapter two is titled Diversity and Cooperation in 16th-century fishing. Don’t let the title put you off. In it, he explains how the fishing industry worked. It looks at the role of foreign fishermen, especially the English, French and Spanish, who had to pay to fish in Irish waters. One detailed example is the O’Driscolls of Baltimore and the vast wealth they accrued from facilitating foreign fleets. Another fascinating detail is the description of fishing techniques, such as drifting for herring, hand lines, long lining etc and the knowledge of the time of fish behaviours and the need to adjust methods based on the fish’s behaviour, like hake rising to the surface at night. He also covers preserving techniques and types of craft employed here.

The third chapter focuses on the fish trade. Hayes uses English port records to show how fish were exported, mostly from Ireland’s east coast. There’s little evidence of Gaelic involvement in trade, possibly due to missing records or that these have yet to be transcribed in French or other continental archives.  Chapter four looks at why the fisheries declined in the late 1500s. Key reasons include English military takeovers, land resettlement plans, and piracy, which includes several interesting details on the local area. Chapter five discusses how important fish were for feeding English soldiers during wars, especially dried fish during the Nine Years War, primarily imported from Newfoundland.

The final chapter returns to environmental issues. Honestly, I struggled with it. But there are some very interesting pieces of information in it. Hayes explains how people tried to protect fish stocks, like creating statutes to manage watermills from harming fish migration, a major issue at the time. But there were also efforts to stop the pollution of our rivers from the linen trade – the retting of flax led to nasty residues that were known to be lethal to fish and which the authorities worked to offset. He also connects changes in fishing to larger environmental and oceanic changes, showing that both nature and human actions put pressure on the fishing industry. In the modern context of overfishing of species and the collapse of certain fisheries, it’s both fascinating and rather glum to read that we have been here before!

What stood out to me was the details, scattered throughout, which I found so heartening and enlightening about the fisheries of the time. Yes, it’s a long way back, but for years I have delved into the history of fishing and struggled to find much of the detail that Hayes describes.  What really resonated was the information of foreign fleets coming ashore to dry or salt their catches before heading home to England, France or Spain and how this was facilitated – a practice I had long suspected with the monks of Dunbrody, Buttermilk and Ballyhack Castle and elsewhere in the harbour. Hayes explains the process including the barter of salt or wine for the rights to do this, or even to fish. It was also interesting to read that information that Jim Hegarty of Crooke had written on the “Spanish Fort” of Passage was also confirmed, even down to the need to protect fishing craft from piracy and attack. Such nuggets are throughout the text.

One detail that I think Patrick Hayes overlooked or was not aware of is that he continually refers to salmon as a freshwater fish, and seems to have no concept of the weirs that operated in the lower harbour of Waterford (and elsewhere) and their role in catching salmon of the era. This surprises me as Arthur Went is referenced several times. I was surprised that he also failed to mention that there was a flourishing herring fishery on Great Island during the time period he was concentrating on – per Hore’s History of Wexford. Perhaps it just underlines the value of the local historian in such matters.

Although written and priced with an academic in mind, I would highly recommend this book. I may have struggled as a non-academic, but persistence certainly paid off. The details contained are fascinating, and one can only wonder what other information may yet be discovered by determined researchers like Patrick Hayes.  I might never be able to afford such texts, but we do have a tremendous library service, which I can thank for the access

PATRICK W. HAYES, 2023. Boydell and Brewer -£90. ISBN 9781783277063