Sir, - There are so many ill-informed passages in Kevin Myers's Irishman's Diary (June 26th) that it would take a similar-sized column to refute them all.
Let me, therefore, pick just one of his preposterous allegations, i.e. that "no penal law prevented Irish fishermen from harvesting the seas" and reply to it in brief, with reference to just one Irish port, Wexford.
In the 17th century, massive shoals of herring appeared off the Co Wexford coast, attracting hundreds of fishing vessels from home ports and from abroad. Sir William Brereton, writing in 1634 ("Travels of Sir William Brereton", published in Illustrations of Irish History, etc., in 1904) says Wexford haven "was furnished with 500 sayle of shippes and small fishing vessels". From this port alone some 100,000 barrels of cured herrings were exported and a similar quantity was cured for home consumption in 1640.
Then Cromwell came. His Parliament in London, at the behest of English fishing interests, moved to exploit the situation. Irish fishing fleets were banned from appearing out of harbour while English fishermen were engaged at the industry. It may not have been a Penal Law but it wiped out Wexford's herring-fishery for generations. - Yours, etc., Richard Roche,
Kincora Avenue, Dublin 3.