That the Parliament recognises the 175th anniversary of the death of Thomas Mathers, the ‘fisherman poet’, who was born in St Monans in the East Neuk of Fife in 1793 and died on 25 September 1851; understands that he died shortly after receiving an author’s copy of his Musings in Verse by Sea and Shore, the only published collection of his work, and was buried in an unmarked grave; further understands that his time at sea began as an apprentice on the whaling fleet, hunting in the waters off Greenland, before continuing in merchant shipping after he returned to St Monans and mastered navigation; notes that he travelled widely, including to Venice where he had a brief encounter with Lord Byron, which he recalled for the rest of his life; further notes that despite later leading the difficult and dangerous life of a fisherman in St Monans in the nineteenth century, Mathers was able to share his poetry in the Fifeshire Journal and other newspapers, and achieved critical acclaim for his work; commends the efforts of Jerzy Morkis who has published a reproduction of the collection of poems to commemorate Thomas Mathers in this anniversary year, and agrees with the sentiment of one of Thomas Mathers’ poems that “Poesy is passion’s language, The effusions of the mind, Progeny of joy or anguish, Spring from feelings most refin’d.”