Portscatho Harbour is on the Roseland Peninsula and is a small statutory harbour authority.  It consists of three slipways with a breakwater, jetty with landing steps.

The harbour caters for a number of small boats and kayaks which are either moored in or launched from the slipways.

Portscatho was an important local fishing community in the past and used for protection from the prevailing winds.  Now there are only one or two local fishermen making a living from these. Their ‘cove boats’, as they are known, have to be pulled out in poor easterly weather.  The villages have become increasingly dependent on recreational boating and tourism.

History

Portscatho in the 1700s was part of the manor of Pettigrew, it became busy with fishing and even had a boat building yard at far end of the village. There are many records of pilchard fishing at Portscatho, when catches were good the village prospered but some years when vast shoals of little silvery fish did not visit bay times were very hard for the locals. As early as 1626 records show 18 pilchard seine boats working out of the village. Along the shore there were low built open fronted fish cellars. The fish were cleaned, salted and packed into wooden barrels and the majority were sold and found their way to Mediterranean ports.