12 November 1998 Edition
Salmon fishermen struggling to survive
By Roisín de Rossa
Sure you just can't win with the salmon. If the catch goes down, the Fisheries Board and Government restrict the season because the salmon are running out, and if the catch goes up, then conservation is working and the sea fishermen can afford to lose days of the fishing so more fish are there for the anglers and the tourists.
The season was cut last year to two months, June and July, and at that, fishermen can only fish four of the days in any one week. The old salmon season used to be 4 February to 31 July.
``It's a disaster,'' says Paddy Ahern, spokesperson for the fishermen in Youghal. ``If it wasn't for FAS workers we'd not be able to keep the co-op going'' (The co-op handles all the paperwork for the fishermen). ``No one can make a living out of it the way things are.''
They are probably not expected to. Michael O Cinneide, Manager of the Southern Regional Fisheries Board, said at the end of July that ``only a fraction of the 317 licensed fishermen are expected to make a reasonably good return.''
``The problem is that the Government never put the resources into the fishing industry,'' says Sean Murphy, a fisherman on the Blackwater. ``If they had put resources into the industry, into larger boats, so we could compete with the 50 or 60 footers that can come into our waters now, we could have developed a great town here, with a fish processing industry along with it. There would have been no unemployment.''
``As it is they've let all that go,'' Sean explains, ``the Governments gave way in the EU on the fishing limits, and reducing them to 12 miles. They never fought for us. That was when we lost it all. In the end the limit will be into the shore and that will be the end of fishing here. The Government sold us out. We can't make a living here any more on a few crabs and lobsters. Our boats aren't big enough to fish, in winter, for the white fish. Our living was in the salmon.''
There is a similar story all round the salmon fishing grounds in the South West. Kerry fishermen protested at the start of August this year by casting an illegal net for salmon. But Minister Michael Woods, claiming he was conserving the fish, refused to budge on the season limits.
But what about stocks? Have the salmon been fished out by off shore fishing? Or have the anglers upriver overfished it? The fishermen say no. They say that the salmon stocks are down because of pollution from farming which runs off into the river, as it winds its way down from the Kerry border, through Mallow and East County Cork to Lismore, where the Duke of Devonshire still owns the fishing, and down to the sea, at Youghal, where the Devonshires still own the shore rights.
One fisherman tells how he remembers standing by the river in the first week of February back in 1959, and watching the `spent fish' - the salmon which, after spawning, go pink and run back to the sea, exhausted. ```The dukes' we call them - lean and lanky, it's after the Dukes of Devonshire. Nowadays, with the pollution in the river, you never see any of them running down and out to sea.''
You don't see the Duke much either, as according to local fishermen, he spends most of his time in the South of France. But they buy their licences to fish in the estuary and out to sea off him. The Duke owns the shore rights and fishing rights of the famous salmon river, the Blackwater, as it flows wide and deep past Lismore Castle, with its fine old trees and rich pasture. It costs the fishermen £260 each, for both licences.
``They haven't stocked the river for six years at least. They don't care about the fishermen,'' says Sean. Will it be the same story as in West Kerry where fisherman O'Conchuir says, ``60% of the houses in this area, around Smerwick, are holiday homes. The native population is falling.''
As if to prove it, Youghal Town Sinn Féin Councillor Martin Hallinan says, ``you've only to look down the road where there are 80 to 90 holiday apartments, in the Green Park Hotel to see what's happening to this town, where the money is going,'' and with it the fishermen and their livelihoods.
``It's not compensation that we're looking for,'' Sean says. ``We'll always be down here.'' Sean and his family, as other fishermen standing on the pier waiting for the boats to come in, have been in the fishing all their lives. They won't change. ``We just want to make a living from it.''
Sure you just can't win with the salmon. If the catch goes down, the Fisheries Board and Government restrict the season because the salmon are running out, and if the catch goes up, then conservation is working and the sea fishermen can afford to lose days of the fishing so more fish are there for the anglers and the tourists.
The season was cut last year to two months, June and July, and at that, fishermen can only fish four of the days in any one week. The old salmon season used to be 4 February to 31 July.
``It's a disaster,'' says Paddy Ahern, spokesperson for the fishermen in Youghal. ``If it wasn't for FAS workers we'd not be able to keep the co-op going'' (The co-op handles all the paperwork for the fishermen). ``No one can make a living out of it the way things are.''
They are probably not expected to. Michael O Cinneide, Manager of the Southern Regional Fisheries Board, said at the end of July that ``only a fraction of the 317 licensed fishermen are expected to make a reasonably good return.''
``The problem is that the Government never put the resources into the fishing industry,'' says Sean Murphy, a fisherman on the Blackwater. ``If they had put resources into the industry, into larger boats, so we could compete with the 50 or 60 footers that can come into our waters now, we could have developed a great town here, with a fish processing industry along with it. There would have been no unemployment.''
``As it is they've let all that go,'' Sean explains, ``the Governments gave way in the EU on the fishing limits, and reducing them to 12 miles. They never fought for us. That was when we lost it all. In the end the limit will be into the shore and that will be the end of fishing here. The Government sold us out. We can't make a living here any more on a few crabs and lobsters. Our boats aren't big enough to fish, in winter, for the white fish. Our living was in the salmon.''
There is a similar story all round the salmon fishing grounds in the South West. Kerry fishermen protested at the start of August this year by casting an illegal net for salmon. But Minister Michael Woods, claiming he was conserving the fish, refused to budge on the season limits.
But what about stocks? Have the salmon been fished out by off shore fishing? Or have the anglers upriver overfished it? The fishermen say no. They say that the salmon stocks are down because of pollution from farming which runs off into the river, as it winds its way down from the Kerry border, through Mallow and East County Cork to Lismore, where the Duke of Devonshire still owns the fishing, and down to the sea, at Youghal, where the Devonshires still own the shore rights.
One fisherman tells how he remembers standing by the river in the first week of February back in 1959, and watching the `spent fish' - the salmon which, after spawning, go pink and run back to the sea, exhausted. ```The dukes' we call them - lean and lanky, it's after the Dukes of Devonshire. Nowadays, with the pollution in the river, you never see any of them running down and out to sea.''
You don't see the Duke much either, as according to local fishermen, he spends most of his time in the South of France. But they buy their licences to fish in the estuary and out to sea off him. The Duke owns the shore rights and fishing rights of the famous salmon river, the Blackwater, as it flows wide and deep past Lismore Castle, with its fine old trees and rich pasture. It costs the fishermen £260 each, for both licences.
``They haven't stocked the river for six years at least. They don't care about the fishermen,'' says Sean. Will it be the same story as in West Kerry where fisherman O'Conchuir says, ``60% of the houses in this area, around Smerwick, are holiday homes. The native population is falling.''
As if to prove it, Youghal Town Sinn Féin Councillor Martin Hallinan says, ``you've only to look down the road where there are 80 to 90 holiday apartments, in the Green Park Hotel to see what's happening to this town, where the money is going,'' and with it the fishermen and their livelihoods.
``It's not compensation that we're looking for,'' Sean says. ``We'll always be down here.'' Sean and his family, as other fishermen standing on the pier waiting for the boats to come in, have been in the fishing all their lives. They won't change. ``We just want to make a living from it.''