Wexford fish trade hasn’t much mussel

February 1988

Mussels. The French adore them, the Americans can’t get enough of them, but in Wexford, where a lucrative export industry has grown up around the shellfish, people can take ‘em or leave ‘em.

Wexford mussels can now be bought in supermarkets all over the world, thanks to enterprising shellfish exporters Lett and Co. in Batt Street, but in their home town, they are impossible to obtain.

The reason is simply lack of demand, according to local fish merchants who have tried tempting Wexford palettes with the tasty shellfish, but without success.

A visit to Meyler’s in the Bull Ring (where the Mayor, Gus Byrne, was buying Lemon Sole) brought the following explanation: ‘we had them for a while, but they just didn’t go very well. There’s no sale in them.’

And it’s not that Wexford people don’t like fish. They do. In Meyler’s alone, they buy plaice, cod, lemon sole, whiting, trout, haddock, ray, and black sole in large quantities, every day of the week.

The demand always rises on Thursdays and Fridays, with many people still observing the ‘no meat on Fridays’ rule of times gone by.

Up at the L&N Supermarket, manager John Cooney says ‘we did stock mussels, but we ended up throwing them out.’ Jack Roche at Quinnsworth says the same: that they end up throwing out more mussels than they sell. ‘There’s very little demand for them,’ he confirms.

Mussel lovers can still buy mussels in Wexford supermarkets though – in the form of jars of picked mussels. That come all the way from Denmark!