Boyne Currach Heritage Group
Boyne Currach Heritage Group
​Seeking answers to Ireland's
​Ancient Maritime Questions
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The home-coming.....

30/7/2016

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Well.....the boat is home again and as the house slowly became quieter and quieter, I poured myself that glass of whiskey that I had promised myself and as I drank it with glee, I thought of that red-headed rat in the harbour wall, crying her heart out as she realises that the fat-laden cow has left for good. There is so much to say about everything that was learnt from spending the last 3 months in Dundalk bay.
This was one of the longest summer I'll ever remember, or at least since I was a child anyway. We managed to get out sailing in the skin-boat about thirty times......but with all of the usual elements of wind and tides put aside, nothing could happened without the help and support of people who, in their own very busy lives, took time out to help make the project work. Be it enthusiasm, knowledge or brawn, each piece of help linked one particle to another to pull, what sometimes felt like, answers out of the rabbit's arc. I learnt that you can repeatedly blind yourself with knowledge on a subject, so much so that the obvious becomes impossible to see, until someone else spots it out for you. That happened again and again this summer and it was because of this, that we had such a successful series of sea trials. Thanks to everyone for their good will and support. Thanks also to both Meath and Louth County Councils and to Indaver Ireland Ltd.  In the next few weeks we will be posting up a report about all that has been learnt this summer.
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3rd Sail Lucky.....

14/7/2016

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It's time to call it a day...... but just as we began to arrange the crew to help lift her out, the winds began behaving themselves, as if they knew too well how to tease us back in again. The boat is back on the beach ready to take advantage of every opportunity, but for the occasional blow that sends us retreating behind the wall waiting for the first chance to stick our noses back out again. They have been early morning sails on the idyllic bay, beneath the Cooley mountains. Now that the boat has begun to quicken, the leeboards used to stop it drifting have come into play and a frantic feeling has overcome the crew to dot the 'i's and cross the 't's. So finally, the last sail shape has been hoisted, the one that for me I favoured as being more inline with what perhaps nomadic mariners would have called a 'Dragon's Wing'. It is an equilateral triangle that has poles attached on two of the three sides. It allowed us reach across the water with ease this morning without the usual concerns. So its back to the workshop to add another 6 ft to its length  before we can get back on the water and try it again. A quick run to Waterford was fitted in during the week to collect 10 black heavy-duty plastic pipes that are to be used as rollers for taking the boat up the beach. Thanks to the guys at ITFS!
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Soft Rain......

12/7/2016

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The spuds are being harvested along the coast road that looks across the bay at the Mourne Mountains, a site where dozens of flint arrow heads and scrapers were found years ago. Below the road, the rocky beach is frilled with a silky green scarf, churned out of the sea on each returning tide.  Diving gannets and terns have the men thinking that the mackerel have begun to arrive. A single motor sailer unties its moorings to be there first to catch the seasons prize, such sons of men who laboured hard once on giant schooners which they owned and filled with coal to carry from liverpool back across the Irish sea to the now broken up pier of a merchant family called Jones. The occasional salmon breaks a flooding tide to begin its journey back from where it first begun.  Gusty westerlies have me thinking summer is over, until a brief spell the sun appears, just enough to make the rolling sea change your mind about lifting the boat for another little while at least, 3 months will be enough for the boats first outing, bleached and haggered from the weather. I look forward to oiling it up once its home. Beneath its hull, crustaceans have begun to grow on the wooden skids, I use a leeboard to slide in under to follow the footprints of an old harbour rat whose tooth marks make for fine cave art as it slices off the white tallow that coats the underbelly of the craft. I hope he has had his fill and returns to eating seafood soon. A barrel of lanolin has arrived from the factory to seal off the rawhide seams from within its weeping hull. But for now I am content to make another size of sail from the green glossy canvas and the brass coated eyelets to find out which size sail best suites our slow moving cow still on her way home to the dairy with the herd.......     
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    Claidhbh Ó Gibne

    An artist and currach-maker whose studio and home are located among the remnants of countless monuments in the Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Park.

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