The islands of Inishbofin and Inishark are situated off the west coast of Ireland. Small and remote, the islands had struggled following the Great Famine of 1845-52 and over the following decades recovery remained slow due to the reliance on crops grown on the poor local soil.
In 1873, this book was published by Thomas Brady, Inspector of Irish Fisheries, drawing attention to the plight of the islanders and petitioning for greater investment in the local fishery. The book described a series of fishing disasters that occurred in tandem with a famine in the winter of 1872/3. It went into great detail about the lives of the victims and the effects of their loss on those left behind. Such an endeavour was rare in accounts of fishing disasters, which tended to focus simply on numbers of those lost, and drew the attention of the public to the islanders’ sufferings.
Brady would continue to seek assistance for the islands, writing several other accounts of Inishbofin, petitioning local landowners and publishing articles in newspapers but the effects of his efforts were limited. In 1873 the islands were transferred from County Mayo to neighbouring County Galway so that relief from the local Poor Law Union could arrive more quickly but this did little to help the islanders. They never received a permanent doctor and ongoing food shortages in the 1870s and 1880s forced many people to leave in search of a better way of life elsewhere.