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IRELAND’S TRADITIONAL BOATS
by Donal Mac Polin
“If you’ve no horses,” I said, Ireland’s west coast remains the last repository for
“How do you get to Galway if you want to go to a fair or some of Ireland’s most iconic traditional boats.
Although most are now used for recreation they
to market?” were once the mainstay for hundreds of small coastal
communities from Donegal to Kerry.
“We go by the sea,” he siad, “in one of the hookers you’ve Because of Ireland’s location on Europe’s fringe,
likely seen at the little quays while walking down by the certain boat types have survived here for generations
road. You can sail to Galway if the wind is fair in four while disappearing from mainland Europe, and many
hours or less maybe; and the people here are all used to the distinctive variations have evolved within quite small
sea, for nó one can live in this place but by cutting turf in regions. For example eight different currach types
the mountains and sailing out to sell it in Clare or Aran, evolved in the county of Donegal alone, as we shall see.
for you see yourselves there’s no good in the land, that has
little in it but bare rocks and stones”.
J. M. Synge
All around our coast, for generations, Irish people
have shared a bitter-sweet relationship with the sea.
Not alone is the sea a source of food from both ocean
and shore but the water also marks a boundary. Where
the land ends and the ocean begins marks the start of a
connecting route to every conceivable elsewhere, from
Africa to Nova Scotia.
In high seas, shipwrecks could bring inconceivable
bounty, or claim the lives of one’s neighbours. In the west
of Ireland it was uncommon for sailors or fishermen
to learn how to swim – their deep respect for the sea
dictated that this was not a realm of leisure.
Today much of Ireland’s traditional boats survive as Carrying an Arran Currach © Donal Mac Polin
pleasure craft – and but for a few exceptions, they are
out of daily use When Robert O Flaherty filmed Man Boat Types
of Arran in 1934, it was the iconic black currachs that
sealed an image of rural Ireland and it’s hardy sailors. Ireland has three distinct boat types: ‘carvel’, ‘clinker’
Today only a couple of curraghs continue to serve and ‘skin’. A carvel boat is one with a smooth rounded
local fishermen. Restrictions from central command hull while the sides of a ‘clinker’ boat is formed of thin
in Europe seek to curb overfishing . Unfortunately, overlapping boards. A ‘skin’ boat (or ‘currach’) is one
these restrictions would appear to be conspiring to get which has a very light internal skeleton of narrow laths
these vessels off the water – it was never the smaller covered with a ‘skin’ of canvas and tar. Today, of course,
craft that caused drastic pressures on fish stocks of animal hides are no longer used, and these boats are
course. It would seem more appropriate today in our now covered with a black nylon or fibreglass covering.
environmental awareness, to foster a culture of the small
scale fishing industry and the respect for heritage and Currachs
values that went with it.
Of the few curraghs that remain in use today many Perhaps the most distinctive craft to be seen along the
have come to rely on outboard engines to propell them west coast today are the ‘skin’ boats or currachs (known
at speed. The legendary bravery of local seafolk is now as naomhóg in Kerry). Currachs once reflected the
attendant to a list of safety precautions – of course, if an poverty and isolation of the west coast, and were made
engine fails, the oars become once again the essential famous by the Robert Flaherty’s 1936 documentary
failsafe. Reflecting on our present day dependency upon ‘Man of Aran’. (Visitors to Inis Mór in the Aran Islands
fossil fuels and the vulnerability of our car culture in the
face of global economic uncertainty – it is timely now to
appreciate, revive and explore this exciting culture of the
sea.
188
by Donal Mac Polin
“If you’ve no horses,” I said, Ireland’s west coast remains the last repository for
“How do you get to Galway if you want to go to a fair or some of Ireland’s most iconic traditional boats.
Although most are now used for recreation they
to market?” were once the mainstay for hundreds of small coastal
communities from Donegal to Kerry.
“We go by the sea,” he siad, “in one of the hookers you’ve Because of Ireland’s location on Europe’s fringe,
likely seen at the little quays while walking down by the certain boat types have survived here for generations
road. You can sail to Galway if the wind is fair in four while disappearing from mainland Europe, and many
hours or less maybe; and the people here are all used to the distinctive variations have evolved within quite small
sea, for nó one can live in this place but by cutting turf in regions. For example eight different currach types
the mountains and sailing out to sell it in Clare or Aran, evolved in the county of Donegal alone, as we shall see.
for you see yourselves there’s no good in the land, that has
little in it but bare rocks and stones”.
J. M. Synge
All around our coast, for generations, Irish people
have shared a bitter-sweet relationship with the sea.
Not alone is the sea a source of food from both ocean
and shore but the water also marks a boundary. Where
the land ends and the ocean begins marks the start of a
connecting route to every conceivable elsewhere, from
Africa to Nova Scotia.
In high seas, shipwrecks could bring inconceivable
bounty, or claim the lives of one’s neighbours. In the west
of Ireland it was uncommon for sailors or fishermen
to learn how to swim – their deep respect for the sea
dictated that this was not a realm of leisure.
Today much of Ireland’s traditional boats survive as Carrying an Arran Currach © Donal Mac Polin
pleasure craft – and but for a few exceptions, they are
out of daily use When Robert O Flaherty filmed Man Boat Types
of Arran in 1934, it was the iconic black currachs that
sealed an image of rural Ireland and it’s hardy sailors. Ireland has three distinct boat types: ‘carvel’, ‘clinker’
Today only a couple of curraghs continue to serve and ‘skin’. A carvel boat is one with a smooth rounded
local fishermen. Restrictions from central command hull while the sides of a ‘clinker’ boat is formed of thin
in Europe seek to curb overfishing . Unfortunately, overlapping boards. A ‘skin’ boat (or ‘currach’) is one
these restrictions would appear to be conspiring to get which has a very light internal skeleton of narrow laths
these vessels off the water – it was never the smaller covered with a ‘skin’ of canvas and tar. Today, of course,
craft that caused drastic pressures on fish stocks of animal hides are no longer used, and these boats are
course. It would seem more appropriate today in our now covered with a black nylon or fibreglass covering.
environmental awareness, to foster a culture of the small
scale fishing industry and the respect for heritage and Currachs
values that went with it.
Of the few curraghs that remain in use today many Perhaps the most distinctive craft to be seen along the
have come to rely on outboard engines to propell them west coast today are the ‘skin’ boats or currachs (known
at speed. The legendary bravery of local seafolk is now as naomhóg in Kerry). Currachs once reflected the
attendant to a list of safety precautions – of course, if an poverty and isolation of the west coast, and were made
engine fails, the oars become once again the essential famous by the Robert Flaherty’s 1936 documentary
failsafe. Reflecting on our present day dependency upon ‘Man of Aran’. (Visitors to Inis Mór in the Aran Islands
fossil fuels and the vulnerability of our car culture in the
face of global economic uncertainty – it is timely now to
appreciate, revive and explore this exciting culture of the
sea.
188
