Norfish 05 Irish Herring Fishery 1520-1790

The Irish herring fisheries were highly productive at the beginning of the sixteenth century and were one of the largest industries in Ireland at that time (Hayes, 2021). The fishery suffered a decline towards the end of the sixteenth century due to a mixture of persistent warfare, environmental change and shifts in market conditions. The fishery recovered in the seventeenth century but was severely disrupted during the 1641 Rebellion and Confederate period in Ireland. Large scale herring fishing again resumed in the later seventeenth century and continued to fluctuate over the next century, before briefly becoming one of the most productive herring fisheries in Europe in the later eighteenth century.