Stone Pyramid

Stone pyramid marker

On Clooniff townland’s lake shore is this stone pyramid marker.

The inscription stone on the pyramid reads, “the several fishery of the River of Galway extends from Lough Corrib to the Sea 1669”. Recent oral history provided information that it was,

used by the English to say that all the salmon in the Corrib from that point to the mouth of the river (more precisely to Wolftone Bridge, by the Spanish Arch) belonged to Colonel Cross – an Englishman. ¹

But the history of the Galway fishing rights on the Corrib commenced well before Colonel Cross was involved. In fact, about 600 years earlier!

 

“Several” fisheries

Several fisheries are those where the owner may have included the bed and soil, or were considered an appurtenance accessory of the land they owned:

exclusive ownership of a fishery in freshwater cannot lapse, either through non usage or contrary occupation and fishing by the public, [and] as such, in these waters constitutes a trespass. ²

 

First recorded ownership of the Galway Fishery

It believed that in 1283 CBE, under the reign of Edward I, the Pipe Rolls (the financial records maintained by the British Treasury) note that Walter De Burgo owned the Galway fishery. Walter (alias Raymond) was a minor when he inherited his father’s lands after Walter’s older brother, Richard, died. The lands were held in trust for Walter (by the King) until he came of age in 1250.

However, Walter’s life was short lived and he died in 1271, whereupon and the lands were once again held in trust for Walter’s son, another Richard, until he could inherit them in 1280. In about 1282, the Pipe Rolls show that Walter de Burgo had possessed:

£11 for the fishery of the salmon weirs in the town of Galway, £10 9s.9d. for rent of the eel weirs and 31 x 8d increase in the salmon and eel weirs … this is the first reference to the Galway Fishery in the records. ³

Over subsequent years and generations, the fishery passed between various owners. Inheritances and petitions to the reigning monarch occurred and allegiances to the crown varied. Names arising were de Burgh, de Bermyngham, Parrys, Blake and Kirwan. In the 1540s, Richard Blake proved that, by his ancestor from the 1370s, he was entitled to the Fourthe-de-Hayle fishery! But the idea of the
several fishery wasn’t always such a possessive affair. In the 1520s, the son of the Chief of Clanrickard, William de Burgh granted the “Friars Minor of Observance dwelling near Galway the license and privilege of fishing in the river of the town of Galway.” ⁴ And Henry VIII granted a licence to a widow, Janet Lynch, to have three nets on the river (records of the licence continuing on for her descendants for more than a century) as well as other folk.

 

Patent

Sir George Preston was granted letters patent in 1661, “…pike and salmon fishery, eel weirs and mills on the Shannon, all and singular fishings in the sea in and belonging to Connaught.” ⁵ However, political events again had occurred and papists who lost lands could appeal to the Court of Claims. But Preston’s patent remained secure and thus became the 1669 patent we know today as the date showing on the pyramid marker near Clooniff:

By letters of 27 th July, 1661, we directed the granting to Preston of several mills, weirs, etc., mentioned in the said letters patent … Preston shall have as our gift all the salmon fishing, pike and eel and other fish of and in the river of Galway in the county and town of Galway. ⁶

 

18th and 19th centuries

The patent was passed on 29 May 1669 and when Preston’s daughter married George Eyre, her son later sold it to an Edward Eyre in 1710, who held it until 1852. The several fishery of Galway from Lough Corrib to the sea, including buildings and fixed engine weirs and cribs was then sold to the Ashworth brothers, Quakers from Lancashire, for £5,000. They built the Fishery Tower in 1853 and their title to a several fishery was confirmed by the Court of the Queen’s Bench in 1855.

Given the Ashworths took the matter of people illegally fishing in their waters to the courts on more than one occasion (and were given a perpetual injunction), it is likely that it was they who built the
pyramid marker near Clooniff as a reminder to locals that they were not, in fact, permitted to fish from the Corrib. It is unclear how tenant farmers, having recently witnessed and/or experienced an gorta mόr, felt about the erection of this solid, stark, stone marker. Perhaps as time went by, together with the advent of the various Land Acts (1870, 1885, 1891 and 1896) allowing tenants to buy their lands from their landlords, the owners of the fishery softened and became more lenient in their attitudes to the local people of Clooniff.

 

The present

The fishery then passed from the Ashworth’s relatives to Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Guy Kynaston Cross (1894-1961) in 1922. In the 1950s the Barber family owned the fishery before selling it to the State (Central Fisheries Board) in 1979.

In 2010, control of the Galway Fishery vested in Inland Fisheries Ireland. A rod licence for the day costs about €120, and three salmon can be taken on the fly or one using worm. Spinning can only be used as a method in high water. There was a recent outcry when the Inland Fisheries considered leasing the fishery out. ⁷

 

Footnotes

1 Cribbin, I, Moycullen to Melbourne, 10 February 2018
2 Went, Arthur E J, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Culture, History, Literature, Vol. 48
(1942/1943), “The Galway Fishery. An Account of the Ownership of the Fishery,” pp. 223
3 Went, Arthur E J, The Galway Fishery, p.235
4 Went, Arthur EJ, The Galway Fishery, p.240
5 Went, Arthur E J, The Galway Fishery, p.247
6 Went, Arthur E J, The Galway Fishery, p.248-249
7 Derham, R, Windsong, https://deworde.blogspot.com/2018/07/rihla-journey-67-galway-weirs-magna.html, accessed 9 October 2024

 

Bibiography

Archive collection, University of Manchester Library, Ashworth Cross Family Papers, https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/7ff5ef38-4c57-3159-8ce7-b24ae0624872, accessed 9 October 2024

Cribbin, I, Moycullen to Melbourne, 10 February 2018

Derham, R, Windsong,18 July, 2018, https://deworde.blogspot.com/2018/07/rihla-journey-67-galway-weirs-magna.html, accessed 12 September 2024

Galway Advertiser, The Galway Fishery, 9 July 2015, https://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/78433/the-galway-fishery#:~:text=The%20fishery%20was%20held%20under,of%20England%20for%20%C2%A35%2C000,
accessed 12 September 2024

Knox, H T, The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Fifth Series, Vol. 32, No. 2 [Fifth Series, Vol. 12] (Jun. 30, 1902), pp. 132-138, “Occupation of Connaught by the Anglo-Normans after A.D. 1237, Part I”, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25507202?read-now=1#page_scan_tab_contents, accessed 9 October 2024

Knox, H T, The Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1901), pp. 124-131, “The De Burgo Clans of Galway”, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44970910?read-
now=1&oauth_data=eyJlbWFpbCI6ImNyaWJiaW4uaW1lbGRhQGdtYWlsLmNvbSIsImluc3RpdHV0aW9uSWRzIjpbXSwicHJvdmlkZXIiOiJnb29nbGUifQ&seq=8#page_scan_tab_contents , accessed 9 October 2024

President of Ireland, Speech at the Official Re-opening of the Fishery Watchtower, Wolfe Tone Bridge, Galway, 27th March 2015, https://president.ie/en/diary/details/president-performs-the-official-opening-of-fishery-watchtower-museum/speeches, accessed 9 October 2015

Keady, A, This is Galway, The History of Galway’s Fisheries Tower, 22 February 2022, https://thisisgalway.ie/the-history-of-galways-fisheries-tower/, accessed 12 September 2024

Went, Arthur E J, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Culture, History, Literature, Vol. 48 (1942/1943), pp. 233-253, “The Galway Fishery. An Account of the Ownership of the Fishery”,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25505968?read-now=1&seq=17#page_scan_tab_contents, accessed 9 October 2024

Unknown author, Irish Legal Blog, Land Purchase pre-1922, https://legalblog.ie/land-purchase-i/, accessed 9 October 2024

Unknown author, Xplore – Galway City, Medieval Tour of Galway – De Burgo Castle Site, https://xploreapp.io/galway/attraction/medieval-tour-of-galway-de-burgo-castle-site-jifua, accessed 9
October 2024

Unknown author, Xplore – Galway City, The Galway Fisheries Watchtower Museum, https://xploreapp.io/galway/attraction/the-galway-fisheries-watchtower-museum-rnlie, accessed 9 October
2024