Galway Harbor Blockade

This past Monday, June 9th, about twenty fishing boats lined up to blockade Galway Harbor in protest.  I was not 100% clear on what they were protesting, but one thing they wanted was for the government to stop taxing gasoline.  Here are some pictures from the day:


Many of the fishermen are still here, flying banners which say:

"Save Our Livelihoods"
"Brussles Betray, Costal Communities Decay"
"Third World starves while Ireland forced to dump dead fish"
"Fishermen demand fair and effective laws"
etc.

Most of these signs are spray-painted onto sheets, and are accompanied by big placards from Sinn Fein urging people to vote against the Lisbon treaty.  

Watching all those boats line up to blockade the harbor was a good morning's entertainment, but I find myself strangely unsympathetic to the fishermen's plight.  I don't really know the issues very well, but it seems to me that the fundamental problem is that a century of industrial fishing has depleted stocks to the point where making a living as a fisherman is going to be extremely difficult.  The government can't fix that, not in time to revitalize the industry that caused the problem.  Sure, I'd like to see fish populations rebound to where they were a century or two ago, and fishermen have a good living, but it's going to be a very slow process if it happens at all.  

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