Archive for January, 2016

Greystones Tourism Shore Angling Circa 1989

Friday, January 29th, 2016

A tourist shore angling spends on average between €800 – €1000 over a week long stay.

The following link http://bit.ly/23xl2GR accesses an RTE archive of most likely the “Seiko” competition held on the beaches south of Greystones back in September 1989. The competition attracted 200 shore anglers worth a minimum of €10,000 to the local economy if held today.

European Surfcasting Championships 1989, Greystones, Co. Wicklow, Ireland.

The following month, October 1989 Greystones hosted the European Surfcasting Championships which attracted 11 International teams of five plus their entourage. Staying a minimum of 5 bed nights this competition today would inject €100,000 plus into the local economy before advertising such as the above free TV segment is taken into account.

European Surfcasting Championships 1989, Team Sheets.

Look at the composition of the England team alone, Clarke, Owen, Golds, Toomer, household names back then as a result of the Sea Angler magazine. Imagine the message Wicklow and Ireland could deliver through social media platforms alone if Greystones could stage such a competition today!!

Can we enable our fish to return please?

Greystones, Co. Wicklow, January 2016

Thursday, January 28th, 2016

Turning to view Bray Head a chill north west wind morphed to cutting, burning my face as I leaned forward retracing my steps back along the north pier of Greystones Harbour. Nearly 3 months of interminable damp, wet, grey, dreary, unseasonably mild Atlantic based weather has tried the patience of Ireland’s population this winter, it’s grand to get out in the fresh air and experience some class of sunlight breaking through the clouds. Halyards clink, clink their lonely sound on masts and a lazy dirty brown ground swell rises up before swashing back in synchronicity along the north beach, pier breakwaters and the rocks in front of St David’s to the south.

Greystones, Co. Wicklow north pier.

Although Greystones exudes a familiarity to this writer, my family and many of my earliest memories rooted in the place, how alien it feels today walking through the building site of a controversial harbour development that one day might deliver on its promise so reinvigorating Greystones connection with its so recent maritime history especially the fishing. Ironically a no fishing sign on the pier head accurately describes what has happened offshore, I cannot but smile.

Greystones Harbour, Co. Wicklow, Ireland.

The extent of the new harbour development northwards has clearly exacerbated coastal erosion along the north beach, glacial deposits in the mud cliffs scoured and washed southwards by the strong ebbing tide to infill the cove, the mens bathing place and the south beach as far as Ballygannon point. I have never seen such coastal deposition in this area, granted north easterly gales have been infrequent over the past few years. It begs the question though, how are the offshore grounds changing?

Willie Redmond (left) and Seamus "Jago" Hayden (right) clean a trammel net of weed, Greystones, Co. Wicklow, Ireland around 1960.

My grandfather fished the offshore grounds as did my uncles and latterly me. In fact the amount of grandfathers, fathers and sons that fished out of Greystones could surely fill a book with names given the amount of people that I have witnessed preparing their boats for sea over the years. Compared to recent past times the harbour is soulless reflected in the tackle shop adjacent to the Beach House pub closing its doors for the last time due to falling trade. Ironically again, the answer to Greystones maritime economic malaise lies beyond the pier heads, rejuvenate those fishing grounds and the heart will beat again, ah the wisdom of middle age………….

Ireland’s Sea Fisheries Belong to All its Citizens

Monday, January 18th, 2016

My Grandfather Willie Redmond built clinker design boats in his shed behind Killians Hall a stones throw from the harbour in Greystones, Co. Wicklow, which was a great benefit to yours truly an outdoors loving young lad who gained access to a boat from a very early age. In my tenth year dad taught me to row, initially in and out between the moored boats in the harbour only letting me leave the confines of the pier head when I could show him that I could maneuver the craft to his satisfaction. The litmus test being that I could row between the said moored boats without touching them.

A young Ashley Hayden at the harbour Greystones in 1984 with his first born daughter Emma - Claire.

Around the same time I helped dad construct a long line out of heavy cotton line imported from Hong Kong to which were attached 100 mustad spade end hooks on two foot snoods at 12′ intervals. Dad’s modus operandi became clear in the late summer of 1971 when in early September we shot the line in a zig zag pattern off St David’s school, me rowing with the last of the ebb tide while dad payed out the baited hooks before two hours later as the flood tide commenced roles reversed dad rowed and I hauled, a series of large red spotted plaice flapping over the gunnels. The boy was hooked.

Today 45 years later I would be hard pressed as a young 55 years old grandfather of two wonderful grandsons to repeat the above exercise such is the decline that has occurred in Ireland’s inshore sea fisheries. If this decline had occurred due to natural causes one would not lament so, however the damage is solely man made. In 2007 I wrote a piece, “An Angler’s Tale” about that first day off Greystones in 1971 and considered how we all could work towards improving our sea fisheries so that my Grand Children might experience in some way the marine wonders that I saw, smelled, heard and felt as a young boy and latterly teenager.

Given that my first born grandson Myles is now three and second born Dillan is two months old that day is well nigh upon us and sadly Ireland’s marine fisheries have not improved, in fact things have only gotten worse. In the early 1980′s I considered the idea of artisan sea fishing out of Greystones but buried the notion very quickly as the writing was on the wall even then with regard to sea fisheries decline and I was only going to enter the industry if I could run a stand alone operation with no reliance on state or EU subsidies, what I caught governing whether I would sink or swim.

Would that other people had thought like that because today the Irish Government props up a failing industry due to political ignorance of how to manage effectively Ireland’s marine resource, political cowardice when it comes to the acceptance that the marine stakeholder brief is far wider than just those who choose to sea fish commercially and through State/EU funding continues to fuel an industrial sector that is mining itself into oblivion while stoking the raging bush fire of marine fisheries decline. By supporting the grossly undemocratic present marine fisheries development and management status quo the Irish Government and its servents are  denying my grandsons Myles and Dillan and their peers what is their natural heritage and birthright.

The industry talks about “Grandfather Rights”, well my two Grandsons have great great grandfather rights and it is about time that they were recognised. At this juncture there is little chance that either Myles or Dillan will be able to forge a career in marine sea fisheries either as commercial fisherman, charter skippers or sea angling guides such is the Irish Governments inadequate response towards rectifying the wanton destruction of what is arguably Ireland’s greatest natural resource. Myles, Dillan and their peers deserve better………….