Ireland's history and culture has been shaped by the surrounding seas where for generations our forebears found nourishment from fish and from legends - and on boats of all kinds, writes Lorna SigginsMarine Correspondent
WRITERS TEND to pay great attention to detail, but playwright Enda Walsh selected a highly improbable location for his riveting play, The New Electric Ballroom, which was one of the highlights of this year's Galway Arts Festival.
The story of three sisters living in a "remote fishing village" and "still obsessed by darker memories" is "a coiled, dark, glitter-dusted fable of the emotionally stultifying effects of small-town life", the Druid Lane Theatre's programme states.
In fact, by their very geographical location on the periphery, coastal communities tend to be anything but insular, enjoying a traffic which is both transitory and dynamic when fishing is - or has been - good. Opportunity is synonymous with each returning tide.
Take west Cork's Castletownbere, for instance, which was once dubbed the "peseta port" because of its strong Iberian links. Were she living there, Enda Walsh's tragic character, Ada, could have been swept off her stilettos by a sallow-skinned Pedro, leaving the hesitant Patsy in her wake.
This communion with a natural element, which is both intimidating and invigorating, has left an indelible mark on our heritage. It is a theme embraced by Críostóir Mac Cárthaigh, archivist-collector at the UCD Delargy Centre for Irish Folklore, and a number of experts in traditional craft, in an impressively comprehensive 650-page illustrated publication.
Rising from an undersea plateau midway between Scandinavia and the Iberian peninsula, the island of Ireland marks a "crossroads" both "geographically and historically" on the western seaways of Europe, Michael McCaughan of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, explains in the new book. That location has influenced development of a rich vernacular culture, reflected in a myriad styles of watercraft.
Some 60 distinct types of craft have been documented in the work, ranging from the keel-less curach (spelt throughout the publication with one "r") to the bundle raft of the Shannon flood plains. This diversity is partly explained by a littoral environment which combines both exposed coasts, sheltered inlets and muddy estuaries - and partly by the varying demands required of such craft.
Some are no longer extant or exist only as replicas, Mac Cárthaigh writes, and some have little future, as a result of last year's ban on driftnetting for salmon and other pressures on the inshore fishing industry. Fortunately, the concept of commissioning a major study predated the current difficulties within the sector.
The idea arose back in 1994, during the Glandore Classic Boat Regatta, which has been run tirelessly by civil engineer and sailor Donal Lynch and several colleagues in the west Cork haven since 1992. Present at that time was Bernard Cadoret, editor of Ar Vag and an expert on Breton working boats. In a chat between him and Lynch, engineer and yachting historian Hal Sisk and Galway hooker skipper and polar adventurer Paddy Barry, it was agreed to undertake a comparable study of vernacular Irish craft.
A project committee was established, and terms of reference included restrictions to craft of 40 feet or less. The bád mór of the Co Galway coast and the Kinsale hooker, which is now extinct, represented the "upper limit". Focus of the research would be on the period from the mid-19th century, due to greater availability of documentary sources.
While much was made of such documentation, including photographs, the study's most significant element involved a programme of intense field work to interview boat-builders, skippers and vessel owners - hence a list of sources which runs to 14 full pages, drawn up region by region.
THE CIRCUMNAVIGATION BEGINS in the north coast, with the Norway yawl, the Donegal punt, the BIM lobster boat, named after the State's sea fisheries board, and the Arranmore island "flat". It continues anti-clockwise to the west coast, home of the Achill yawl, Galway hooker, curach adhmaid or wooden curach, Galway Bay "flat", the gandelow or Shannon Estuary fishing boat and boats of the Dingle fishery. Moving up east, Sisk also writes about Rosslare herring cots, Jim Rees and Michael Tyrrell document the history of the Arklow yawl and Tully shares her knowledge of the pilot boats, hobblers and skiffs of Dublin Bay - "hobbler" being the term for a freelance pilot. Kevin Rickard writes of the "trocks" (troughs) and "barms" (set of bottom long lines) and other curious terms native to Howth, Co Dublin, where two distinct groups of fishermen used the west and east piers respectively.
Kerry's naomhóg is the largest working curach in Ireland today. The naomhóg can be seen as a kind of "historical bubble", he writes, given its short life-span, which began less than two centuries ago, and its dependence on products of the early industrial revolution such as refined coal tar, factory-made cotton fabric and imported wood.
Dr Séamas Mac Philib says Ireland may have been unique in northern Europe in using "bundle rafts" of rush, which were very buoyant and could stay afloat until waterlogged, on inland waterways. One such cliath thulca, as they were called, is photographed with oarsman on Co Roscommon's River Suck in 1962. Gillian Mills writes of the turf boats used to transport fuel from bogs west of Mullingar to Dublin, with cargoes including wedding parties and funerals also using this mode of transport.
Arthur Reynolds, founder of The Irish Skipper, gives a context to the developments with a chapter on Irish fisheries in which he pays tribute to the research on this sector by the late Dr John de Courcy Ireland. The industry experienced peaks and troughs over the centuries, with accounts of Irish fishermen landing for a luxury export trade in the 15th century. By the 18th century, penal English legislation resulted in a severe decline, and it was not until the 1930s, when the new State began providing loans for powered craft, that there was some redress, he says. In 1962, the appointment of Brendan O'Kelly to head up Bord Iascaigh Mhara injected new energy.
Referring to the situation that developed after EU accession and the Common Fisheries Policy, he says it is a "stark fact that the value of fish taken from what was once our natural waters by our EU partners is greater than the value of all the EU benefits which have been received by Ireland".
• Traditional Boats of Ireland: History, Folklore and Construction, edited by Críostóir Mac Cárthaigh, is published by Collins Press with support of the Heritage Council and a number of State organisations. Price hardback is €60, or €50 this month at Dermot O'Donoghue's new bookshop in Glandore, Co Cork