Boatman plots a course for the past in his naomhog

Padraig O Duinin may not have boldly gone before when he visited Amsterdam's red light district but he most certainly boldly went like no man before - after all, how many can claim to have toured the Walletjes in a West Kerry naomhog?

The canals of Amseterdam are but one of countless voyages that Padraig has undertaken since first helping to found Naomhoga Chorcai in 1992 and more recently Meitheal Mara - a group dedicated to exploring Ireland's rich but neglected maritime heritage.

Padraig's love of matter maritime began as a youngster living on the banks of the Lee near where it is joined by the Sullane outside Macroom. "We used to borrow boats from a neighbour, Con O'Leary, and go rowing on the Lee and that's where it all started.

"My interest in currachs came about 11 years ago. I was sitting with my brother in law, Seamus O Muirthile in a pub and we were both reading An tOileanach and Fiche Bliain ag Fas at the time and Seamus said to me, wouldn't it be great to have a naomhog?

"So we went off and got a boat builder in the Maherees in Kerry, Monty Leary, to make one for us - it cost us £650. We took it to Brittany in 1988 and got a great reception - people were wowed, they knew all about naomhogs and were fascinated by them."

But Padraig's fascination was growing too and four years later, he helped found Naomhoga Chorcai, a traditional naomhog rowing club which rows for fun every Saturday morning in Cork Harbour and which travels around the country attending regattas.

Later in 1992, Padraig and his friends, brothers Frank and Jim Conroy brought a three-hand naomhog to London for the Great River Race - a race on the Thames from Richmond to Greenwich for traditional craft from all over the world.

"There were all sorts of traditional boats there. Some of them were nearly like bathtubs. We won the first year in three hours, four minutes and 40 seconds and for a while we seemed to have a major problem breaking the three-hour barrier but we managed it last year," he recalls.

Becoming increasingly more fascinated - "some might say obsessed," he quips - Padraig helped set up Meitheal Mara in 1994 with the group initially building currachs with the aim of providing part-time employment and training under a FAS Community Employment Initiative.

But the voluntary group's role has broadened and now, thanks to continuing funding from FAS and assistance from the EUfunded Cork Local Employment Action Network, Meitheal Mara is as involved in researching and studying traditional craft as it is in building them.

Cork Corporation too has proven a major benefactor, providing Meitheal Mara with premises at Crosses Green House, opening on to the south channel of the Lee just across the river from Beamish and Crawford's brewery.

"It's going to be called The Boatyard and it's an ideal spot," says Padraig. "We have access to the river, we already have a boatbuilding shed, we're working on developing an exhibition area called The Fishermen's Hall and we're also building up an Irish Sea and River Database."

The Meitheal Mara research team didn't have to look very far for their first entries. Saint Finbarr passed through the area by boat en route to establishing his monastery nearby while the Vikings used to moor their longboats just downstream at what is now Sullivan's Quay.

"To this day, the area is rich in maritime lore," says Padraig. "Paddy Flynn, a fisherman from Keyser's Hill off French's Quay, remembers a time in the 1930s when there were 30 boats fishing out of Georges Quay and 100 men employed."

The fishermen from the south channel - George's Quay, Sullivan's Quay and French's Quay - formed the St Finbarr's Rowing Club and together with the Riverside Club from the Coal Quay and Tivoli and Blackrock Rowing Clubs, they used to compete at local regattas.

While the north channel doesn't appear to have as strong a fishing tradition, it too can boast a rich boating history - albeit for more leisurely pursuits.

"Up in Sunday's Well, a lot of families had their own wherries - small rowing boats that they used to take trips up and down the river.

"We know of one man who up until the 1970s used to row from Sunday's Well to Cobh every Sunday, down with the ebb and back with the flow."

Not of course that Meitheal Mara confines its interest to just Cork's waterways and boats. Indeed, one director of the group, Darina Tully, has identified more than 50 types of Irish boats - from West Kerry naomhogs to Waterford prongs to Suir cots to Cork yawls. Another director, Donal Lynch, is co-ordinating a book on the traditional boats of Ireland which is due to be published next year.

"Basically, most traditional boats can be divided into two types - clinker, where the boards are lapped and they're found around the north and east coast, and carvel, where the boards are butted edge to edge and caulked and they're found more around the south and west coasts."

But if Ireland has a rich maritime past, then Padraig passionately believes that it could equally have a rewarding and profitable future. "We have a fabulous tradition and with our waterways, we have a tremendous resource that is totally under-utilised," he says.

"We see great potential there - firstly in developing our waterways as a speciality tourism area and if that takes off, then there's going to be a need for boats and the boatmaking skills we're teaching here so it could make for very interesting times ahead."

Meitheal Mara is interested in hearing from anyone with recollections of traditional boats from the coast, estuaries, lakes and rivers. It would particularly like old photographs which it promises to copy and return. It can be contacted at Crosses Green House, Cork. Tel 021-316813.