This time around no knives have appeared at the table, instead only the flint shards knapped from stones a fortnight before. The hide dangled down from being draped over an existing leather currach to help us stretch it into the correct shape. The flint, once you got used to it, cleaned fat and tissue far closer to the skin than I would have ever risked with a knife, the trick of course was to grow a long thumb nail so as to be able to trap the filament of tissues between your thumb nail and fore finger, allowing you to pull as you scrape. By the end of a long day we were finished, the only thing left was to bury the bones as a project for another day. We sailed to Wales in our conversations and the smell..... well it left as soon as we forgot it was there.
This time around no knives have appeared at the table, instead only the flint shards knapped from stones a fortnight before. The hide dangled down from being draped over an existing leather currach to help us stretch it into the correct shape. The flint, once you got used to it, cleaned fat and tissue far closer to the skin than I would have ever risked with a knife, the trick of course was to grow a long thumb nail so as to be able to trap the filament of tissues between your thumb nail and fore finger, allowing you to pull as you scrape. By the end of a long day we were finished, the only thing left was to bury the bones as a project for another day. We sailed to Wales in our conversations and the smell..... well it left as soon as we forgot it was there.
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Claidhbh Ó GibneAn artist and currach-maker whose studio and home are located among the remnants of countless monuments in the Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Park. Archives
August 2018
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