On Wednesday, Lady Burdett-Coutts opened at Baltimore, in West Cork,
an industrial fishing-school, which is to be accessible to all Irish boys, who will learn there the most approved modes of fishing, as well as carpentering, coopering, boat-building, net, rope, and line-making, sail-making, and fish-cnring. This industrial school promises great results, because it is a mere development of an enterprise which has now for the last eight years been going on with ever-increasing success in Baltimore. In 1879, Lady Burdett.Contts proposed to advance £250 or 2300 towards a boat for every trustworthy Baltimore applicant, the builders agreeing to accept that sum as a first- payment towards the cost of a boat which would, when paid for in fall, come to 2650, and agreeing to take the balance in yearly instalments from the profits of the fishing. The number of boats now owned by the fishermen of Baltimore is forty-four, in various instances more than one family sharing in the same boat. Not only have the fishermen been very steady in repaying the Baroness and the boat-builders, but the industry has made steady progress, and with it a number of subordinate industries, so that Baltimore is described as having been transformed by it from one of the most miserable of Irish villages into a prosper- ous and thriving neighbourhood. This is, at all events, the right way to extricate Ireland from her misery, because it goes to the root of the matter, the economical origin of her misery, and removes it, not by shielding indolence, but by stimulating labour and enterprise.
Previous page
