Malin Head Heritage Group seeking stories from the sea for archive project

Members of the community in the Malin Head area are being asked to share stories as part of a project on the history of the area’s fishing fleet.

The Malin Head Heritage Group, which has been collecting local stories for over 25 years for publication in its Malin Head heritage booklets, wants to hear stories about the fleet and the sea in general from people in the community.

Malin Head once had a large salmon fleet and at one point had the biggest brown crab fishery in Europe. But the fleet has changed and is much smaller than 40 years ago.

The heritage group is calling on people to join a round table meet-up on Wednesday, October 26 at 7pm in the Malin Head community centre to allow people to tell their stories about the sea so that they can be recorded. Old pictures are also being sought for publication. 

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The stories will be archived by the Malin Head Heritage Group and used in future for heritage events as well as in the group’s heritage magazines.

Ali Farren of the Malin Head Community Association said the heritage group wants to gather stories so that “ they won't be lost in years to come”.

The stories can be linked to anything to do with the maritime history of the area including the weather station, he said.

“There’s a massive marine history in the area and we want to hear about lobster fishing, fishing poles, trawling the Inishtrahull sound and the shallow bed, poaching trout, salmon fishing and trying to avoid the naval services on both sides depending on what licence you had, gathering seaweed or picking winkles,  catching 80-100 boxes of crab with 200 pots compared with the crab fishing today”.

The group wants to hear not just from people involved in fishing directly or indirectly, but also from family members of people who fished, he said.

“We also want to hear from women who had fathers or brothers or uncles who fished. Anyone who has a story to tell, we want to hear from them.”