
The early Gauchos who, with their skills in rawhide braiding, made horse bridles and saddlery an art form, were standing on the shoulder of their Spanish invaders who in turn had been groomed by the Moors who brought this highly skilled craft from the Sahara. I can’t help thinking anymore that we also snuck in behind the Neanderthals to only improve on what they had begun 100,000 years before us, when tripping over the Mediterranean to far off islands where they dined out on pigmy hippos and there are indications that leather or skin boats had continued to be used on the Mediterranean for much longer than we think. Hazel grew plentifully as in Ireland and with so many similarities between our currachs and their early crafts of both on land and sea, it’s impossible not to want to be lured into the unanswered questions surrounding the builders of the great brochs of the islands to our north and those dotted throughout Sardinia. Were these the culture of people we call the ‘Fir Bolg’ - raiders and pirates from the sea, a lingering civilisation from the late Bronze Age that just wouldn’t go away? I’d imagine the people who built Newgrange had the same tenacity, unwilling to change from a way of life that had seen them succeed and prosper for at least 2,000 years. The present civilisation occupying the fertile plains and glens of Europe continue to harvest what they had sewn 5,000 years ago, organised religion and hosting from the domesticated animals they had chosen. But they say everything changes in, give or take, 2 millenniums, so who knows, perhaps the forests of Europe may find favour once again over our present form of food production and the new mind set of veganism, being accepted now so openly in the holy lands, will perhaps give a new impetus to finding where human evolution has us going. We are but wishful gold fish, seeking to find other ways round the same old bowl.....