The Lake Dwellings of Ireland: Or ancient lacustrine habitations of Erin, commonly called crannogs.Wood-Martin, W. G. (William Gregory)
History
The Lake Dwellings of Ireland: Or ancient lacustrine habitations of Erin, commonly called crannogs.
Wood-Martin, W. G. (William Gregory)
Lake-dwellers and lake-dwellings -- Ireland
_Piscatory Implements._--In the crannog of Drumgay, county Fermanagh,
there were implements for forming the meshes of nets. They consisted
of nine pieces of deer’s horn, varying in size from six to little more
than three inches in length. Four of them are curiously fashioned.
Similar objects, composed of the tips of deer’s horn, have frequently
occurred in crannog “finds,” and, during excavations made about
the year 1851, in Christchurch-place and Fishamble-street, Dublin,
many like specimens were discovered. There can be little doubt
that they were used for making fishing lines or nets: indeed one
of the discoverers having procured some thread, at once proceeded
to illustrate his theory by the manufacture of a fishing line. The
suggestion has also been offered that they may have been arrow or
javelin heads. From vegetable fibre the crannog dweller made nets with
which he obtained an ample supply of fish from the waters around him,
and sink-stones, used for either fishing lines or nets, are by no means
a rare “find.” Quoit-like discs of sandstone, pierced with a hole to
attach them to the bottom rope of a net, are not uncommonly employed,
even in the present day, in remote localities. A bronze fishing-hook
picked up from the bottom of a lake is here figured, and in plate
XXIX., vol. ii., of Keller’s work, there is a representation of one
closely resembling it. In 1845 there was found in Lough-na-Glack,
county Monaghan, a bolt or missive of bronze, 16½ inches in length,
evidently used for spearing fish, and of which two illustrations are
given in Shirley’s _History of the County Monaghan_. The thong or
string attached to this weapon, and by which it was hauled back after
projection, was called in Irish _fuainemain_. The name is in the
present day applied by the herring fishermen of the south of Ireland to
the bolt-rope of their fishing-nets.
[Illustration: Fig. 53.--Sink-stone. Half-size.]
[Illustration: Fig. 54.--Bronze Fishing-hook. Full-size.]
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