Mr. Thompson, of Clonskea Castle, county Dublin, sworn. Is the agent on the estate; succeeded his father, who had been agent for many years. Witness has in his custody all the rentals and leases of the estate from 1794. "The rental in 1800 was £2143, as fixed by valuation in that year. In 1812 the rental was £2668; in 1827, £2145 10s. 4d.; in 1846, £1937 17s. 7d.; in 1881, £2067; in 1885, £2067; the acreage of the islands being 11,288 acres. The lands are in the hands of tenants, with the exception of two croggeries which are in my occupation."
The learned chairman, Mr. Crean, B.L., inquired what a croggery meant.
Witness said that "croggery" was a very ancient name for fourths. The entire islands were divided into townlands, which townlands contained 4 or 6 quarters each, every quarter containing 16 croggeries, and every croggery containing 16 acres. Inishmore thus contained 4 townlands and 4t. × 6qrs. × 16crog. × 16ac. = 6144 acres. On Inishmaan there are two townlands, which contain 6 quarters each. On Inisheer there is only one townland containing 4 quarters. The tenants have manure and seaweed from the sea shore free of charge. The seaweed was very valuable in 1866, when the kelp made on the islands realized £2577, being £5 a ton. There is no kelp made now, owing to the fall in prices. For twenty years the value of a tenant's interest in a croggery varied from £30 to £90.
This closed the landlord's evidence, and the lay sub-commissioners in due time inspected the farms. The case came on for judgment, and the court reduced the rent from £3 18s. 6d. to £2 7s. 6d., being 39.75 per cent. reduction.
All the other cases were similar to the last.
On Tuesday, July 20, 1886, her Majesty's gunboat was moored at the New Docks, Galway, for the purpose of taking the Land Commission composed of Mr. Crean, Lieut.-Colonel Bayley, Mr. Rice and myself, to Aran. The voyage was one to be remembered. The wind, from the S.S.W., rose to a tempest, not a sail in sight. Nevertheless the vessel held on her course, though the wind was high against her, and she let drop her anchor in due time in the Bay of Kilronan. No mail boat from "Europe" arrived in the islands during the greater part of that week. To fix a fair rent was the object of fifty-four originating notices which now came on for hearing. Of this number two were dismissed on points of law, and forty-nine had their rents fixed, the sum of the old rents being £384, which was now reduced to the new or judicial rent of £231, being a reduction in favour of the tenants of £153, say forty per cent. This reduction, as a matter of course, was well received by the islanders; but the questions that are irresistibly forced on the mind are, can any reduction of rent improve their condition? And can any tenure of their farms, or any estate therein, however large, raise them from their condition of comparative poverty to that of wealth? And would it be of material benefit to them to sweep from the landlord the last farthing of his rent, and to grant the same to them? And would it not be for their weal rather that they had schools to instruct the young in the natural history of the fish, and in the ways of science connected with the deep sea fisheries, and in navigation and all its kindred branches, such as mathematics, spherical trigonometry, the use of the compass, magnetic needle, the constellations, and nautical tables, etc., together with all the trades incident to fishing such as carpentering, ship building, nail making, sail, net, rope, and line making?
BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS.
And ought not the young and the old to be familiarized with the name of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and with her wonderful works in the cause of the Baltimore Fishery? And would it not be for the weal of the islanders, and of the nation, the Irish nation, that the islanders should be supplied, not for charity, with deep sea fishing appliances, as the Baltimore fishermen have been?
THE ARAN FISHERIES.
The ignorance of our fishing population is thus deplored in the report of "the inspectors of the sea and inland fisheries of Ireland," 1887:—