It is the final frontier for fishing in western Europe and even though inshore fisherman Eamon Dixon is well used to steering through the waters around the Iniskeas and the Stags of Broadhaven, this summer’s wild and windy weather challenged even the most experienced skippers.
Just like the 20 other fishers who berth at Ballyglass harbour near Belmullet, Co Mayo, Dixon’s 12m (40ft) boat was tied up in a maze of chains and ropes for half the days this summer when he would normally be heading to his fishing grounds. His boat, the Deirbhile Áine, is named after his daughter and a local saint whose mythological powers are deeply ingrained in the area’s folklore.
“The bad weather has certainly been a big factor this summer but it only added to our problems,” he says. “In a normal summer you hope to get 80 or 90 days fishing but this year the end of July and beginning of August were terrible.
“Two or three years ago I’d average a ton of crab per haul and the price we got was between €1,000 and €1,200. With the slack market now I’d be lucky to average around €600 for a ton.”
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Dixon says no inshore vessels made it out from Erris and the weather was a problem all “along the west coast”.
“Once you get a force five or six the seas we work on are not a very nice place to be,” he adds. “Our usual prevailing winds are southwesterly but this summer we got a lot of northwesterlies.”
As chairman of the National Inshore Fisheries Forum (NIFF), established in 2015, Dixon is well used to lobbying the powers-that-be about the needs of this sector. NIFF is a network of six regional forums and represents the inshore fishing sector, which comprises more that 80 per cent of the country’s fishing fleet.
“We are constantly bombarding the Government, and Minister [for the Marine] Charlie McConalogue, about how poor our markets have become and the fact that the factories here say the smallness of our catches make them not viable for purchase,” he says. “This is because of the limitations of our quotas and forces us to rely on one processor in Northern Ireland who can set the price on their terms.
“The quota for 1,500 boats for hook-and-line mackerel is 400 tonnes. That’s caught in a week. It should be 1,000 tonnes for our sector to remain viable.”
He also says while the shellfish markets “are poor” there are usually local restaurants and hotels willing to support it.
“When there’s big events in the hotels in Belmullet I’d sell lobster these days for €18.50 per kilo. Of course, in the bigger tourism towns fishermen can sell them for up to €25 a kilo.”
As winter approaches and boats are tied up, Dixon says he is fortunate he can subsidise his depleted revenue with some part-time building work and the support of his wife’s income.
In Dunmore East, Co Waterford, shrimp fisherman David Barry says he could take to sea in his 7m (23ft) boat Thomas for only 10 days in August.
“To the best of my knowledge we can’t sign on the dole. I certainly don’t. There aren’t many jobs that would allow you to only work when you can’t fish,” he says.
“June and July weren’t too bad for our boats but August was one of the worst we have ever experienced. We start fishing shrimp from August to Paddy’s Day and it didn’t help this year that our market had already collapsed last winter because of falling demand in France and Spain.”
With a two-year-old daughter to support, Barry will crew on the bigger herring fishing boats for part of the winter.
At Roaringwater Bay in southwest Co Cork, Michael Desmond is preparing to go fishing in his 5m (17ft) punt Girl Sadie, named after his daughter. He has been fishing for more than 35 years after leaving school at 16.
“I spent six years working on big boats up in the Arctic and the weather conditions there were way easier for my mental and physical health than what we have endured here over the last year,” he says. “We had 11 named storms by last April and then our summer arrived. The reality for us is that even after the wind dies down the swell stays up.”
Desmond is chair of another representative group, the National Inshore Fishermen’s Association (NIFA), which works with NIFF to highlight the growing problems affecting the sector.
“My revenue from shrimp catches has quartered over the last two years. We were already in trouble because of the impact of Covid, the loss of fishing grounds and British buyers due to Brexit, as well as increased energy prices since the outbreak of the Ukraine war. This terrible weather has caused a perfect storm that I’m not sure we’ll survive,” he adds.
“My income from shrimp, which is 75 per cent of my fishing, has dropped €30,000 over the last two years.”
Desmond adds that he is not holding his breath about a new project announced in August by the Minister to build on data gathered by a Bord Iascaigh Mhara census aimed at supporting and enabling the inshore fishing fleet.
A department spokesman confirmed this new scheme opened for ongoing applications on September 17th and involved two detailed surveys.
“Survey after survey won’t save our sector,” says Desmond, who adds that he has beaten a path from Cork to Leinster House with other fishers over the last year.
“All we get is talk, talk, talk, from our coastal politicians, and the importance of our sector and then they sit down and do nothing. The promises start again when an election is looming.”
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