Report on the shell-fish layings on the Irish coast : as respects their liability to sewage contamination.

  • Ireland. Local Government Board.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report on the shell-fish layings on the Irish coast : as respects their liability to sewage contamination. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    152/270 (page 72)
    ESTUARY OF RIVER LIFFEY. (Map No. 31.) Report by Dr. D. Edgar Flinn, Medical Inspector. The estuary of the Liffey is bounded on the north by Fairview and Clontarf, and the north breakwater or North Bull extending to the Bull Lighthouse, and on the south side its boundaries are the Pigeon House Wall, the Poolbeg or Great South Wall, extending to the Poolbeg Light- house, the length of the northern boundary being about five and a half miles, and that of the south about four and a quarter miles. The estuary at its widest part is about one mile and a quarter. All the north flowing drainage of the mountainous range on the southern border finds its way into the River Dodder, which flows eastward and empties into the mouth of the Liffey. The latter river takes the drainage from the plains of Kildare to Dublin Bay. The River Tolka running parallel to the Liffey, about two miles further north, discharges into the estuary of the Liffey near Clontarf. The foreshore at Clontarf is always laid dry at low water, and the sewage of a large and populous district is discharged directly on to the foreshore there. The entire estuary receives the crude sewage of the City of Dublin as well as that from the recently added Urban Districts of Clontarf, Drum- condra, and Glasnevin. Within this area, according to the Census of 1901, there is a population of 290,638 persons, 32,061 inhabited houses, this area being 7,911 acres in extent. Owing to the general adoption of the water-closet system, the pollution has increased very considerably in recent years, and there is ample evidence of this pollution everywhere. OYSTERS. At the Fairview and Clontarf portion of the estuary the sewage-saturated condition of the foreshore is very apparent. In this immediate vicinity are situated the Clontarf oyster layingsL which I have dealt with in a separate report.* A more unfavourable ground for the collection of shell-fish can hardly be imagined than the strand and foreshore at Clontarf. COCKLES. Cockles are gathered in very large quantities in the vicinity of Dublin, and a great number of people earn a livelihood by hawking and selling them in the poorer quarters of the city. At low water during the spring, summer, and autumn months, the strands on the southern shores of Dublin Bay are sometimes crowded with cockle gatherers. It is difficult to ascertain accurately the amount of cockles consumed in Dublin; it is, however, well known that cockles are very largely eaten all the year round in the city, particularly in the summer and autumn months. I can only arrive at an approximate estimate of the amount from information that I have received. It is probable that from about seventy to eighty thousand quarts of cockles are eaten in Dublin annually. At least three- fourths of this large quantity is eaten in a raw state; they are, however, nearly always eaten when freshly gathered. Cockle gatherers have stated to me that, as a general rule, they are able to dispose of the contents of their baskets in a comparatively short time after having gathered them. Some of the localities from which cockles are collected are, as previously stated, so obviously liable to pollution from sewage matter, that a grave danger is incurred by the consumption of this class of shell-fish, and it seems a not unlikely contingency that many of the cases of acute diarrhoea and vomiting, as well as attacks of gastro-enteritis, that occur in Dublin at certain seasons of the year might be traced to the eating of this class of shell-fish gathered from polluted sources. * See page 74.