12/05/2021
Boyne Currach - revisited..
In 1930 a beautiful short film was recorded by Pathé industries for the royal antiquarians society of Ireland. Pathé films went on to Wales afterwards in 1932 to film two fishermen traveling down river in their traditional Coracle, a word that rolls from the tongue in such an eloquent manner, first appearing in history to describe small river fishing crafts by a Norman Cistercian monk, the French love rolling their RRs. The Welsh tradition was much more modest, referring to their skillful craft of boat making as Cwrwc or Cwrwgl. The word Coracle seems too shallow a term for a craft to which our individual stories owe so much, perhaps acceptable for the engineer in his tidy shed who wishes to tame the wild from a vessel born from the Neanderthal's imagination. Sit in a Welsh Cwrwc, a Scottish Courich or a Irish Currach and allow it weave you into a story so old and rich that the greater world becomes an almost irrelevant chore My only regret is that the Scottish Antiquarian, James Hornell, who documented so much about theses crafts, hadn't found the due funding for his work. He could have led the charge of collecting the evidence from around Scotland, whose traditions held firm till the end, with simple willow and raw hide to produce the authentic craft measured only by the size of the hide and the strength of their willow. Purists were so proud of their boat's light and agile nature that they could throw them over their shoulder and still be adequately strong enough to carry three people across an estuary or narrows. I think it's the skin boats of Scotland that inspire my own ideas the most. How Ere, the robber, crossed to the island off Mull to harvest seal cubs for his community, much to the dismay of Colmcille's community in Iona. Or Kentigern's father, the king, who cast her out to sea without paddle or mercy after arriving home pregnant without a husband. Our own Patrick uses similar methods of penance on a Bó Aire of Strangford (the local Cowlord), when threatened by his disposition. Too many stories of epic voyages surround such crafts made by chieftains to ward off the gossip from local seers, or hermit monks for the love of God, used such crafts to escape the black death in the 6th century, by drifting alone where the tide and wind wills, some turning up in Brittany to the surprise of the local fishermen who thought that the barnacle clad boat covered in seaweed must of been a floating rock. Although they do refer to the fragrantly strong smell that lingered in the air long after the hermit monk had gone, smells of a soggy currach to me. No, James Hornell was wrong when he described the Boyne Currach as a mutated form of coracle. Most definitely it has commonality with a Cwrwc, as then through history we were joined at the hip but for squabbling kings and chieftains who proclaimed that courichs, among other vessels, were banned from crossing to and fro on the sea that defines us. We are all at fault or to be commended for attempting to mould our crafts into a vessel that suit our present indulgences, to fit on the car roof, that it can be perfected by use of a mould, that the wood can be obtained commercially, or that canvas or plastic coverings can fit the size appropriate to our needs. During World War I and II, men returned to their sheds and developed small crafts made of modern materials like aluminum rods, canvas replaced flannel, tar replaced tallow or lanolin, and finely produced leather displaced the raw nature of the hide. All have practical reasons, perhaps to appease a disgruntled neighbour who noticed the sudden increase of rats around their shed. Lanolin sticks in their teeth but more importantly, an enclosed shed nowadays goes without saying. So perhaps a Coracle covers all the above with a broad stroke of the brush, but I personally feel that the Courich's antiquity should remain in Scotland, and the endearing past of a Cwrwc be claimed by the Welsh, Truckles on the Wye and Currachs for the Irish. Ne'r the twain shall meet except when we gather to improve on what has been gifted to us in order to continue its story.. . .www.boynecurrach.com
