Ancient instructions on how to build a currach have proved invaluable in a project to construct six traditional 'west Clare canoes', writes Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent.
Raw knuckles reveal all. Step out of a currach with blood trickling over fingers, and there's some work to be done on rowing technique. "Ah, but we all get the little scabs from time to time," whispers Richard Collins in the bow, though one can tell its a while since he's sustained the tiniest scratch.
As for Finbarr Harte in the stern, there's little he doesn't know about the "canoe", pronounced "kan-oh", which his family has owned for almost 50 years. Skimming across the water in a brisk breeze blowing off the Kilkee shore, the skin boat has a distinguished history. "Imagine - the man who built it was born just after the Famine," says Kieran Clancy, who with Collins and Harte is a member of the West Clare Currach Project.
"Cully's boat" is central to this project, which aims to build, row and fish traditional currachs on the Loop Head peninsula. Not only is the vessel one of the last of its type in the region, it is the last three-man "canoe" or currach built by John "Cully" Marrinan of Coosheen.
Still used for competition at the annual Kilkee regatta, the boat was commissioned by Finbarr Harte's family in 1957. "Cully", a trained cooper, was then 93 years old. When he died later that year, he had built more than 200 craft for fishermen from Carrigaholt on the peninsula's south-west tip to the Aran Islands at the mouth of Galway Bay.
"Now the first thing to do when making a canoe is to lay the two side top frames on four models," Marrinan told folklore collector, Sean McGrath, in 1955, as quoted by Dr Críostóir Mac Cárthaigh of University College, Dublin's department of folklore in a history of the west Clare canoe. "The two frames are morticed together by the aid of the tacaís or 'bearers' (frame struts). Then you start putting on the 40 steam-bent ribs, starting at the stern and coming outwards.
"You peg the ribs into square holes in the lower frame with wedges three inches long. The liúrachs (stringers) are made of ash or deal. Three long liúrachs the length of the canoe - and they may be spliced - are first put on. These three are three inches wide and form the exact bottom of the boat.
"Then at each side of the three you put eight more liúrachs, this time one-and-a-half inches in width. Then you prepare the knees, eleven of them in all. These are made from angles of sally [ willow] and they are pared down to one-and-a-half inches square. You have four knees in the stern, two for each seat, making six in all, and one in the bow keeping the split piece in place.
"It takes five full days with someone tending you to make the shape of a canoe, and it takes two days to prepare the canvas," Marrinan continued.
"The canvas must be tarred five times and it takes 16 square yards of canvas to cover a three-man canoe or 24 yards of canvas 24 inches wide.
"In my young days, you only got IR£3 for making a canoe, now you get up to IR£30. Canoes should be repaired every four years and they should be tarred every seven years. The first coat of the five coats of tar should be boiled when putting it on."
THIS ACCOUNT HAS proved invaluable for the members of the West Clare Currach Project, who have received Leader funding to build six currachs to the original local design. Three have been completed, and three more are close to that in a garage in the middle of Kilkee. Supervising the construction is boatbuilder James Madigan, grandson of Sinon Blunnie, another highly skilled Clare currach-maker.
Most of those involved in the project have a close coastal connection, and remember their fathers and grandfathers talking about the currach fishery for mackerel, herring and whiting. Collins, currently working with the Brothers of Charity in Scarriff, fished on Spanish vessels off this coastline in the 1980s, and with retired skipper, Bill Parslow. He has been involved in the Kilkee Regatta, which has run unbroken for the past 14 years, but is keen to ensure the tradition of fishing, rather than racing, currachs, is passed on to the next generation.
"We'd like to be able to bring young kids here out hand-lining for mackerel, and night-fishing for herring, beyond George's Head," Collins says. "Of course we know it is a hostile coastline here, but the fishing industry generally is going through such a tough time that we want to ensure some of these skills aren't lost."
Like most communities in Ireland, Kilkee has experienced its own form of rapid change - and the tax reliefs allowed under the seaside resort scheme have had both a positive and negative impact.
Up to 300 currachs were used to support a growing population on the Loop Head peninsula in the 19th and 20th centuries, at a time when the closest links to other parts of the western seaboard were by sea. Government grants provided an incentive, and the opening of the West Clare railway in 1887 opened up markets for locally-caught fish in Limerick and beyond, according to Dr Mac Cárthaigh.
However, the "boom times" came to an end in the 1920s, when the US government placed a one dollar tariff on imported cured mackerel to protect its own fishing industry.
There was some spillet fishing up to the 1950s, but the number of currach fishermen declined. A handful continued to fish for salmon, lobster and small amounts of mackerel, as the canvas currach was replaced by heavier wooden replicas, covered with fibreglass and fitted with outboard engines.
ALTHOUGH SUCH REFINEMENTS may seem like sacrilege to the purists, Mac Cárthaigh notes that the original skin boat, made of wicker, covered in animal hide and paddled, has undergone more than one radical alteration.
Curiously, these early changes were heavily influenced by British Navy personnel who were billeted at signal towers along this coast in Napoleonic times. They experimented with new materials, replacing the pitched skin covering with tarred canvas, and added a second gunwale to give greater strength and rigidity.
The West Clare Currach Project aims to build a cowhide canoe after it has finished its six vessels, which should be ready in time for this year's regatta. Part of the Leader funding is also being used to purchase lifejackets, under the terms of the new safety legislation. The group plans to participate in the Ocean to City race planned by Meitheal Mara, the Cork-based traditional boat-building group, as part of Cork's City of Culture programme in June (see panel left).
Collins says they might try working with a sail, but without any major modification of the design. "There was a time when there was regular sea traffic between here and the Maharees, for dances and such like, and perhaps we might take a spin up to Aran. The possibilities are endless. All we need is the good weather."
Drop oars: and we will row, row, row, way up the river...
Wanted: more than 100 mighty, muscular volunteers capable of rowing 15 miles up the River Lee as part of Cork's European Capital of Culture festival.
The appeal has been issued by Meitheal Mara, the Cork-based traditional boat building organisation which is hosting Ireland's largest rowing race on June 4th.
Entitled Ocean to City, the event will involve more than 300 traditional coastal rowing and paddling craft, ranging from Bantry Bay longboat replicas to dragon boats to currachs.
The arduous 15-nautical-mile race will begin at the yachting mecca of Crosshaven, and will extend out to Roche's Point at the mouth of Cork harbour and back in again, upriver to Cork's city quays. Participants are promised "entertainment" en route - if they have the energy to look ashore - and plenty of spectators to issue rousing cheers.
John Kennedy, director of Cork 2005, said the race would be one of the sporting highlights of the year-long festival. "We hope that the success of Ocean to City will result in this racing spectacle becoming an annual event in Cork and an important date in the national sporting calendar."
Apart from requiring competitors afloat, volunteers ashore will also be needed to assist with safety, logistics, administration and the aforementioned entertainment, according to Brendan Hennessy, the event chairman. More details and entry forms are available from Meitheal Mara at 021-4847673, and online at www.oceantocity.com