The lower orders are shrewd, intelligent, and industrious, fond of manly exercises and amusements, such as foot-ball, hurling, and wrestling, but on Sunday evenings the chief and invariable amusement is dancing. They are of a very proud and independent spirit, which manifests itself most conspicuously in their great repugnance to hire as servants, an occupation considered by them to be highly disreputable; hence they remain at home living in penury in a cabin and on a small patch of ground. They are exceedingly litigious, ever ready to have recourse to the law upon the most trivial subjects.
And for Mayo:
Killery harbour is known to be one of the best fisheries for herring; but this branch has been much crippled by the restrictions of the fishery laws. Herrings have been known to set in to some of the bays in vast shoals, yet, from the want of salt, they were left to rot on the shore in heaps; and the wretched fisherman, whose little stock had been expended in fitting out his sea equipage, witnessed his own ruin with abundance apparently within his grasp. To obviate this calamity, salt is now stored at Clifden, Westport, and Bellmullet.
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