Vol. 2 No. 1 - Modernist Magazines Project

J. P. DIGBY 34
original patentees or owners under Charter were no longer
catching fish in their weirs. The owners of angling rights
in the upper reaches rarely saw a fish. So scarce had salmon
become that the price had risen from three pence a pound
in 1820 to one shilling and four pence a pound in 1845.
About this time the Drainage Board, which as before
stated had absorbed the Fishery Commissioners, were
concerned about flooding on the Corrib. Action had been
taken against the then owner to compel him to provide a
gap in his weir to release the flood water. The gap was
subsequently made, the owner taking action against the
Board of Works in the Courts to recover compensation for
loss sustained in the escape of fish through the gap. The
action was defeated in the Courts.
Some few years later, Mr. Ashworth, the then owner of the
Fishery, admitted that he had caught 2,000 fish in one week
and that the gap erected by the Board of Works was the
best job ever done for his Fishery. Thus by accident it was
confirmed that the dearth of fish since 1842 had been
occasioned by the high percentage of fish commercially
caught and the consequent small number of fish reaching
the spawning beds. By an Act of 1848 Boards of Conservators
had been appointed and licence duties for the
different engines had been formulated. In the light of
the experience of the Galway Fishery, agitations for the
promotion of gaps in weirs were frequent, mainly sponsored
by the proprietors of the angling rights. In 1862 a Bill
was passed compelling a gap in all weirs, and this, to some
extent, caused a revival in the Fisheries. It must be understood,
however, that the rape of our Fisheries took place
between the years 1825 and 1842 and that statistics
showing rises or falls in the value of our Fisheries were since
based on the productivity at their lowest ebb in the year
1842.
Since 1862 several Commissions have enquired into the
continued lack of productivity of our waters. It is an
interesting fact that on none of these Commissions did there