CHALLENGED TRADITIONAL LIVELIHOODS

÷ FISHERMAN

As an island nation, there is a long history of fishing in this country. However, it has become increasingly difficult to make a living as a small fisherman in recent decades.

Trawler fishermen have also faced huge challenges.

Often with fishing, pay is low, hours are long and it can be dangerous working at sea.

“For the inshore fisherman, it’s difficult to make a living,” said Michael Cavanagh, chairman of the Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation.

“Salmon fishing was a big thing for inshore fishing but that’s all stopped now.”

Cavanagh, who is now retired, owns a pelagic trawler, which his sons continue to fish on. He described the ongoing dispute over Rockall fishing rights as a big challenge for many Irish fishermen. Rockall is a fishing ground in the north Atlantic and last summer, a row erupted between Ireland and Scotland over the rights to fish in those waters.

“For white fish vessels, the big problem will be Rockall, as a lot of the livelihood of the fishermen here has come from there,” he said.

Cavanagh, who is from Inishowen in Co Donegal, described Greencastle (a fishing port in Inishowen)

“as pretty much like a ghost town most of the time”. “It used to be a strong fishing village,” he said. “There are no young Irish people going into fishing. The weather is a problem and it’s getting worse. I’ve experienced rougher seas over the last 10 years and storms are getting more violent.” There are no official figures on Irish fishermen’s pay but you could earn as little as €18,000 a year starting out in fishing, according to some estimates. ÷ POSTMASTER

Many of us who went to the Gaeltacht or holidayed in the Irish countryside as children remember running to the small village post office to send postcards home.

A lot of these post offices have closed in recent years, and postmasters have warned that hundreds of them in villages, towns and cities could shut over the next two years if urgent action is not taken by the next Government.

The post office network started to evolve in Ireland in the mid-17th century.

There are currently about 900 postmaster-run post offices. “Three hundred of them are losing money, 300 are breaking even and 300 are commercially viable,” said Ned O’Hara, general secretary of the Irish Postmaster’s Union. “We’d have a significant number of people who are earning less than €30,000 a year to run a post office, and out of that money comes all the costs of running the post office, such as rent, wages and so on.

“The income [to run a small post office] could be as low as €10,000 a year.

“Income could be as high as €100,000 or €200,000 for a busy office in Dublin — but out of that you have to pay your costs. Rent is often high in Dublin and a busy Dublin office could be employing five or more people.”

Some of the biggest challenges facing post offices today are a decline in mail volumes and other sources of revenue.