The fishing industry supported a whole range of businesses along the West Cork coast and its immediate hinterland.
Many people on the West Cork coast played a direct role in the fisheries infrastructure: boat-builders and the fishing vessels they constructed, net-makers, fishermen, fish-gutters, fish-curers and packers, and coopers and carriers.
The Commissioners of Irish Fisheries (1824) identified others who were indirectly involved in fisheries. These included carpenters, rope-makers, salt manufacturers, and importers of pitch, tar and hemp.