School: Wexford (4) (roll number 12524)

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1. When the Fishermen Defied the Tradition

   

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   Once and once only did the Wexford herring fleet go out into the bay on that ill-fated night. It was in the year 1762 and the herrings had come in great shoals to the Wexford coast. All the boats and gear were ready and the weather could not have been finer. On St Martin's Eve the herrings came in-shore and the waters of the bay seemed alive with fish. The fishermen were very poor and they decided to dare the old tradition and to set their nets and to take the harvest of the sea that Providence seemed to have sent them. The long reaches of nets were scarcely in the water when they were laden with fish but before they could be hauled in a wild storm blew up and broke over the bay and swept the fleet to destruction and the unfortunate fishermen into eternity.

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   English

2. A Night of Terrible Memory

   

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   The loss of life, boats and gear was wholesale and disastrous. The fishing fleet was wiped out of existence for no boat rode out the storm. The crews of only two boats survived that fatal night. They cut their nets adrift and ran before the storm for home, and the story goes that they saw St

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