Credit: PANL B16-108
Fishermen in Logy Bay.

Every spring vessels from these places bound for Newfoundland called in en route to ports along the south coast of Ireland to collect salt provisions and recruit servants for the summer fishery. New Ross, Youghal, and the great port of Cork were all sources of supply...but Waterford was the pivot of the Irish trade. More than 85% of all Irish came from within thirty miles radius of the city, primarily from towns and parishes along the main routes of communications and trade, both river and road, in southwest Wexford, south Carlow, south Kilkenny, southeast Tipperary, and east Waterford. A further 10% came from the Blackwater Basin in east Cork and west Waterford, through the port of Youghal, and from Dingle, in Kerry.¹¹

For the first 100 years of the Irish migration more English than Irish arrived in Newfoundland. But the number of Irish soon grew. Most Irish came in the early 1770s and the 1810s. During these years 3000-5000 Irish left Ireland each spring for Newfoundland. Most were poor young men who left in an effort to improve their economic lot.¹² But not all were successful.