Affection for a Little Skiff
 In
ancient Ireland, boats gave rise to a whole category
of literature: the imrama, voluntary voyages in rowed
boats. Legendary protagonists like Bran, St. Brendan
and Maelduin set out, attracted by some mysterious lure,
to discover magical islands, encountering mythical creatures
and places along the way. The vessel of choice in all
these imrama is a forgotten type of boat, at some stage
in history the most important water craft in Northern
Europe: the skin boat. Welsh coracles are its better
known survivors, but the sea-going currachs of the Atlantic
seaboard of Ireland, are closer in spirit to the vessels
of Bran and St. Brendan. Just a flimsy lattice or basket
frame and a thin, vulnerable skin separate ambitious
sailors from inhospitable and unforgiving seas. And
yet, this fragile vessel has been chosen not only by
legendary mariners, but also countless generations of
fishermen on the most treacherous seas of Europe.
Early History
Together with log boats, Gaelic coití, the history
of the skin boat reaches back further than any other
European watercraft, possibly as far as the Neolithic
period. Its early humble origins in the hide-covered
basket are still evident in the Boyne River hazel currach
in the east of Ireland. As the only seaworthy craft
of the time, the skin boat played a crucial role in
bringing the first Neolithic farmers to the British
Isles. But this was not the only episode where they
played an important role in introducing new ways of
life. The skin boat was already a popular vessel when
early Christian monks entrusted their life to God’s
hands – and to the fate of their small wicker
and skin boats – in order to spread their spiritual
message all over Europe. Their stories, and those of
their pre-Christian predecessors, fuelled the spirit
of the imrama. In medieval annals, skin boats had a
reputation for a less spiritual purpose. Cattle raids
by the early Irish against Britain were successful thanks
to the extraordinary qualities of skin boats. Light,
seaworthy and extremely manoeuvrable they also have
an astonishing load capacity.
Sustainability
Currachs still have plenty to offer in our time and
have great potential to contribute to a sustainable
way of life. Like many other craft traditions they are
masterpieces of Design for Sustainability. They have
a simple but ingenious design concept, use regenerative
materials and basic building skills. Lightweight frame
and cloth structures are often used for objects for
transit, from tents and yurts to early aircraft. While
sharing this same design ethos, currachs vary widely
between regions. Ranging from 6 to 26 foot in length,
lashed wicker frames of hazel or willow exist parallel
to timber lattice constructions, while hides have given
place to canvas covers, waterproofed with tar and pitch.
Materials from local, regenerative resources add to
a low embodied energy value and environmental footprint
of the boats. Currachs are easily driven by sail or
oar and are inexpensive to make and maintain - characteristics
that add to their appeal as environmentally sound leisure
boats.
With the advent of new technology and economic prosperity
in Ireland, many researchers prophesized the disappearance
of the currach over the last thirty years. Indeed, commercial
fishing currachs along the west coast of Ireland seem
to have shared the same fate as the Welsh coracle: their
fleets have almost completely declined. Today attention
is drawn to their value as leisure craft as they are
refreshingly different from the slick and expensive
cruisers that dominate – and often pollute –
our coastline. Their ethos encourages greater participation
in water activities that can otherwise be socially exclusive.
Future
Community groups are forming throughout Ireland to re-kindle
local maritime heritage and re-gain community access
to the sea. West
Clare Currachs in Kilkee, Co. Clare is making six
new currachs in an attempt to stop their local boat
culture from disappearing. Meitheal
Mara in Cork has been building currachs with marginalised
youths and adults, an integrative project that has proven
hugely successful. On the southern shore of Lough Neagh,
the largest inland water area of the British Isles,
a twenty strong community project is building a fleet
of four Donegal currachs. As there is no historic evidence
of skin boats in that area, they will make maritime
history introducing currachs to the lough. And currachs
still fascinate writers and artists like the well-known
Irish language poet and writer Domhnall Mac Síthigh
who finds his inspiration in the Dingle naomhóg.
The currach’s elegant simplicity continues to
capture the imagination of all these groups of makers.
As a consequence of its historic and political situation,
Ireland’s maritime heritage is not primarily linked
to a naval history, as is the case in Britain, but rather
has evolved from the needs and experiences of isolated
fishing communities. Emblematic of this development
is this humble and ingenious little skiff that has been
cherished by legendary seafarers, countless generations
of fishermen and most recently community groups. Contemporary
currachs are the latest manifestation of an unbroken,
millennia old maritime tradition. And the tradition
is anything but dead: the change from commercial to
leisure use signifies a healthy progress in its development.
The enjoyment of its making and use is beginning to
be recognised, while its full potential for a sustainable
future is yet to be discovered.
The Voyage of Bran ends “from that hour his wanderings
are not known”. So can be said of this humble
little skiff, the currach.
Affection for
a Little Skiff by Holger Lönze was published in
Resurgence, Nov./Dec. 2005, No. 233
Hide boat images © Anne Burke 2005
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Origins,
design principles and material culture of the currach
 The
story of currachs begins with our prehistoric ancestors
using implements such as bone needles and flint scrapers
to manipulate animal skin. It is fair to assume that
the skeleton-built skin boat tradition, one of the four
principal roots of boat building, originates in the
Upper Palaeolithic period. Historians widely accept
that during this period, when hazel and birch was abundant,
complex lashed multi-skin and frame structures could,
theoretically, have been achieved. Complex basket-framed
hide boats, similar to and even larger than the present
Boyne currach, were technically possible by using microlith
blades during the early occupation of Ireland in the
Mesolithic period, about 9,000 years ago. The development
of basic joining techniques in the Neolithic period
would have allowed the construction of simple timber
frames at that time. Woven hurdle making was quite common
in the early Bronze Age and so were metal fastenings.
However, due to the perishable nature of the organic
material used throughout the skin boat, no firm archaeological
evidence has been found to date. But historical insight
can be gained from the technical development of the
boats as well as from literary and pictorial sources.
As early as the 3rd century BC, the Greek historian
Timaeus refers to ‘boats of osier covered with
stitched skins’ transporting tin from Cornwall
to the continent, a trading practice that stretches
back into the middle Bronze Age. In his Bello Civili,
Caesar writes that the boat hulls in Iberia were made
of ‘woven withies covered with hides’, suggesting
that basket making and skin boat-building shared a close
parallel development in their early history. Traditional
basketmakers in Ireland continue to employ the unconventional
technique of constructing large baskets (such as creels)
upside down, sticking the uprights in the ground in
the desired shape. A similar technique was practised
by basketmakers in Cornwall and Galicia. It is also
the method used to make the hazel basket-frame of the
Boyne river currach. Indeed, unlike their Welsh equivalent,
the corwgl or coracle, Irish currachs (with the exception
of the Tory Island type, a recent development) are always
built upside down, starting with the gunwale. This key
element of currach construction, which distinguishes
it from almost all other boat types, may be related
to the absence in it of a keel. Early, large sea-going
currachs may have been fitted with keels, however, as
both Caesar’s Bello Civili and Adomnan’s
seventh century Vita St Columba attest, and the very
detailed drawing of a currach under construction by
Thomas Phillips in 1685 supports this suggestion.
The currach shares its basic design ethos with other
objects of material culture associated with human mobility.
A few sticks tied together with twine and covered with
a sheet of felt makes an effective shelter against the
weather, such as the Yurt used by nomadic Kyrgyzian
tribes and the hazel-framed tents of Irish travellers
used until little more than a generation ago. Rods woven
into a large basket and covered with skin or cloth make
a boat – our currach. Adding a pair of wings to
such a superstructure essentially makes a glider. While
this may present an over-simplified picture, a common
underlying design principle is certainly evident. Frame
and cloth/skin constructions have been an indispensable
component of travel on land and sea since Mesolithic
times, and in our own time have contributed to man’s
conquest of the sky. Such constructions are not therefore
primitive, transitional concepts, but can be the basis
of sophisticated and well-adapted design solutions.
Two elements - clearly evident in a currach - are essential
for such constructions: a lightweight space-frame or
skeleton and a dense and flexible sheet material to
cover it – functioning like a skin over a rib
cage. Currachs, gliders and tents share the fact that
they are extremely light (a 25ft Kerry naomhóg
weighs less than 75kg) and at the same time so sturdy
as to withstand the forces of nature. They are flexible
– moving with and giving way to these forces,
reacting with rather than in opposition to them. Flexibility
is indeed the secret of the superb seaworthiness of
the currach. The gunwale, the latticework of ribs and
laths and the canvas seem fragile in themselves, but
in combination form a strong, ductile and tensile structure
that is able to withstand great forces of wind and wave.
Such a combination allows for multi-hide boats of up
to 60ft to be constructed, such as in the case of some
18th century Greenland skin boats.
Text
by Holger Lönze from an exhibition catalogue for
the Eden Project, Cornwall, 2004
Image © Anne Burke, 2005
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