Baltimore's Boatbuilding & Fishing Heritage
Baltimore has made a living from fishing and boatbuilding for
as long as anyone can remember. Things were very bad after the
Famine, but picked up a little when Reverend Charles Davis went
to plead with Queen Victoria on behalf of his starving parishioners,
for help to build up a fishing fleet. He was given a letter
of introduction to Angela Burdett- Coutts, a member of the Coutts
banking family who eventually became known as Lady Bountiful
through her philanthropic acts. To great local joy she donated
£10,000 for a fishing fleet and in 1886 opened a Fishery
School, the first work-study centre in boat-building and navigation.
By the end of the 19th century fishing was in its heyday,
with an annual turnover of £100,000. To begin with the
catch was mostly pilchards which were pressed for oil and
exported through Wales. They were later replaced by mackerel
and herring, which were salted and cured.
Between 1880 and 1926 Baltimore was the largest fishing port
in the country and 78 fishing vessels were registered locally.
By 1907, after the North Harbour had been built, the fleet
was so numerous that you could - it was said - walk to Sherkin
across the decks of the boats! At one stage there were seven
trains every day out of Baltimore, all carrying fish for the
American market. But the good times didn't last and in the
early 1950s the Fishery School closed and BIM (the Irish Fisheries
Board) took over the main boatyard, which seemed to stem the
decline.
Among the boats built in this yard was the Saoirse in which
Conor O'Brien and a Sherkin man sailed around the world after
in 1923. In 1925 a vessel for the Falklands Trading Company
was launched, delivered by O'Brien with a crew from Cape Clear.
Boatbuilding was a tradition in the Bushe and Skinner families
but most of the old boatyards have closed. Two remain at Oldcourt,
a few miles up the Ilen River, one of which operates from
within the walls of an old O'Driscoll castle. A revival in
the interest of West Cork's traditional wooden boats has led
to the successful Baltimore
Wooden Boat Festival.
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