wtarzia
12-22-2009, 11:25 PM
I visted Ireland a few weeks ago for a (very wet) month of bicycling on the way to do some folklore research in Co. Cavan. On the way from the airport, as I was passing through Navan (some 10s of miles north of Dublin) my memory suddenly clicked in to a conversation I had had with a friend a few years ago, concerning a builder of traditional coracles (skin-on-frame craft). I had it in mind that I might do a brief interview if he had the time, take a few photos, and publish a little article somewhere amenable to little articles. I had read some on these boats and seen their canvas covered cousins on the west coast, so I hoped I could come across as a moderately intelligent interviewer.
My only information was that his name was Clive [later learned it is spelled Claidhbh O'Gibne, pronounced O'Givne] and that his shop was somewhere near the Newgrange Visitor Center, the gateway to the 5000 year old passage grave complex of the Boyne Valley. This center was on the south side of the River Boyne (the mounds are on the north side -- long silly story). Luckily, on a reasonably country-ish road in Ireland, these directions are all that you need -- everybody knows everybody, and an hour or two later I found him. If you are ever in Ireland, his shop is worth a visit.
It was a "bank holiday" -- the curse of the foreign traveller to Ireland, for these mysterious days seem to jump up like evil gerbils and cry out, 'Ha! Everything's closed! I hope you have enough money for today!' Yet Clive was there because he is a busy man and also had a meeting with his leather suppliers. He kindly tolerated my unasked-for presence -- I tried to make him feel guilty ;-) since I had flown 3000 miles to see him (well, sort of...I didn't mention the sudden memory thing).
His stone and brick workshop (a couple of miles before the Newgrange visitor center, on the right) cannot be missed: a frame of a corracle hangs from the gable. Friendly big dogs greeted me with happy muddy feet and dropping tongues, always a good sign, because more often a dog in Ireland is a terrifying brute showing his teeth, a working animal with no time to fool around.
I found Clive sitting at his bench with bullhides soaked in lanolin, the typical covering for the medieval Irish and later skin-on-frame craft (if you are still with me, you probably already read Tim Severin's "The Brendan Voyage" and know as much as I do about leather boats). This was interview heaven, because the setting and his casual words were each the distilled essence of interviwews -- the smell of the hides, fine well-used handtools here and there, and the carvings.... Clive is a carver, and his workship is like a museum where people with uniforms and radios do not jump out of corners and yell at you when you get too close. Or rather, it was not at all museum, but the physical expression of a man's working life. The mantle over the fireplace was carved in Celtic interlace designs, and a wooden fish three-dimensionalized right out of a medieval manuscript illumination stared at me from a corner, and a dozen other things.
When we had a moment alone I asked him if he had any time that day or the next for a brief interview. He said he preferred not to be interviewed. He also didn't want me to take any photos. He was very nice about it, but seemed quite definite. So I would have to enjoy being a mere tourist. He said I could go to his website, newgrangecurraghs (that was what he said), and that "it was all there," (perhaps he has been worn out with interviews and the website is his bulwark), but I have either been spelling it wrong or or using the wrong end-address, and have not found it. [Note: a WBF fellow below found it: http://sites.google.com/site/boynecurrach/home (http://sites.google.com/site/boynecurrach/home) ]
I had caught him at practise on the hides. He uses a short axe with a flaring blade (lets the hand get closer to head) used two-handed to cut them. "I tried different things, but the axe offered the best control." The edge threw off sparkles from the window light, so I guess he keeps it well honed. His leather suppliers wanted to see something out back, and since it must have been an awkward time to hoist me by my backpack straps and toss me out, I got to see what it was. Ahhh!
Out back a 35 foot frame for a curragh stood upside down on posts that let you stand up inside it. This seems critical because you are constantly in there hand-lashing the frame members. Whereas Tim Severin's medieval reconstruction used sawn lathes (from excellent clear lumber I assume), Clive's curragh is an experiment in getting even more serious with a reconstruction than Severin was (my idea, not Clive's! He spoke only about his own boats). Coracles are made with willow saplings bent in the frame, and perhaps some withes* sometimes for some applications. I believe the coracles are what Clive started on, but he migrated to curraghs and I surmise wanted to migrate the older framing method back to the large curraghs.
Most likely medieval curraghs were also built with saplings I should think, in the absence of good saws to put out piles of fine lathes (though medieval Iereland was better supplied in native woods, already in the AD 700s wood supply was stressed, as is evidenced from some remarks in medieval times: see Nancy Edward's book, The Archaeology of Early Medieval Ireland. This leads be to think that thick clear wood would not be used where a sapling could suffice). And perhaps too, the saplings have some advantages in natural strength. Severin was using local and modern experience in the making of his curragh, with the important exceptions that the frame would be lashed with leather thongs and covered with bullhides, though the framework itself would resemble a modern curragh. Perhaps this did not matter for his particular archaeological experiment, but the purist might be very interested in Clive's conception.
(*I am no expert, do not quote me. But I define here a sapling as sapling, you know what it is, a baby tree, and a withe is a sapling that is twisted until the fibers separate but do not break, making a kind of "tree-rope" if you see what I mean, albeit a stiff rope. Withes were used for some lashings, and also to hobble the feet of cattle. They are so strong that the reconstructed 90 ft Viking ship, Stallion of Glendalough, recently home from sailing, had its side-rudder repaired with a withe when its leather contrivances failed at the high-stress location. Anyway, the new book, Traditional Boats of Ireland, has photos of coracles being built, and a brief write-up by Clive on modern uses of the revived coracles).
When I mentioned that "This is like the Brendan boat," Clive nodded, and perhaps is tired of the comparison for all I know. So let's call it a large ocean-going curragh, and add to that "pre-medieval" because it may become part of an archaeological experiment related to the construction of the prehistoric passage-graves of the Boyne, some of whose materials were evidently brought from dozens of miles away. As with the Stonehenge site, the Boyne valley monuments were further ritualized with exotic materials taken from afar.
I noticed the lines were a little different from the Brendan boat. The bow was very bluff, almost scow-like. Clive felt this was the better rendition, and if he is going at some point to try to carry large stones up river in the boat, the extra few pounds of buoyancy there might help. There was no time to pick his brain further on this, so I'll leave the hypothesizing at that.
His lashing method was to temporarily lash the saplings with synthetic line before committing himself to lashing with the leather thongs. Since this boat is a reconstruction with a little less than usual to go on -- a thought-experiment as much as an archaeological experiment -- and since recessional Ireland is probably not pouring money into his project, saving materials like this is perhaps a good and necessary idea.
End of Part I. Go on to part II
My only information was that his name was Clive [later learned it is spelled Claidhbh O'Gibne, pronounced O'Givne] and that his shop was somewhere near the Newgrange Visitor Center, the gateway to the 5000 year old passage grave complex of the Boyne Valley. This center was on the south side of the River Boyne (the mounds are on the north side -- long silly story). Luckily, on a reasonably country-ish road in Ireland, these directions are all that you need -- everybody knows everybody, and an hour or two later I found him. If you are ever in Ireland, his shop is worth a visit.
It was a "bank holiday" -- the curse of the foreign traveller to Ireland, for these mysterious days seem to jump up like evil gerbils and cry out, 'Ha! Everything's closed! I hope you have enough money for today!' Yet Clive was there because he is a busy man and also had a meeting with his leather suppliers. He kindly tolerated my unasked-for presence -- I tried to make him feel guilty ;-) since I had flown 3000 miles to see him (well, sort of...I didn't mention the sudden memory thing).
His stone and brick workshop (a couple of miles before the Newgrange visitor center, on the right) cannot be missed: a frame of a corracle hangs from the gable. Friendly big dogs greeted me with happy muddy feet and dropping tongues, always a good sign, because more often a dog in Ireland is a terrifying brute showing his teeth, a working animal with no time to fool around.
I found Clive sitting at his bench with bullhides soaked in lanolin, the typical covering for the medieval Irish and later skin-on-frame craft (if you are still with me, you probably already read Tim Severin's "The Brendan Voyage" and know as much as I do about leather boats). This was interview heaven, because the setting and his casual words were each the distilled essence of interviwews -- the smell of the hides, fine well-used handtools here and there, and the carvings.... Clive is a carver, and his workship is like a museum where people with uniforms and radios do not jump out of corners and yell at you when you get too close. Or rather, it was not at all museum, but the physical expression of a man's working life. The mantle over the fireplace was carved in Celtic interlace designs, and a wooden fish three-dimensionalized right out of a medieval manuscript illumination stared at me from a corner, and a dozen other things.
When we had a moment alone I asked him if he had any time that day or the next for a brief interview. He said he preferred not to be interviewed. He also didn't want me to take any photos. He was very nice about it, but seemed quite definite. So I would have to enjoy being a mere tourist. He said I could go to his website, newgrangecurraghs (that was what he said), and that "it was all there," (perhaps he has been worn out with interviews and the website is his bulwark), but I have either been spelling it wrong or or using the wrong end-address, and have not found it. [Note: a WBF fellow below found it: http://sites.google.com/site/boynecurrach/home (http://sites.google.com/site/boynecurrach/home) ]
I had caught him at practise on the hides. He uses a short axe with a flaring blade (lets the hand get closer to head) used two-handed to cut them. "I tried different things, but the axe offered the best control." The edge threw off sparkles from the window light, so I guess he keeps it well honed. His leather suppliers wanted to see something out back, and since it must have been an awkward time to hoist me by my backpack straps and toss me out, I got to see what it was. Ahhh!
Out back a 35 foot frame for a curragh stood upside down on posts that let you stand up inside it. This seems critical because you are constantly in there hand-lashing the frame members. Whereas Tim Severin's medieval reconstruction used sawn lathes (from excellent clear lumber I assume), Clive's curragh is an experiment in getting even more serious with a reconstruction than Severin was (my idea, not Clive's! He spoke only about his own boats). Coracles are made with willow saplings bent in the frame, and perhaps some withes* sometimes for some applications. I believe the coracles are what Clive started on, but he migrated to curraghs and I surmise wanted to migrate the older framing method back to the large curraghs.
Most likely medieval curraghs were also built with saplings I should think, in the absence of good saws to put out piles of fine lathes (though medieval Iereland was better supplied in native woods, already in the AD 700s wood supply was stressed, as is evidenced from some remarks in medieval times: see Nancy Edward's book, The Archaeology of Early Medieval Ireland. This leads be to think that thick clear wood would not be used where a sapling could suffice). And perhaps too, the saplings have some advantages in natural strength. Severin was using local and modern experience in the making of his curragh, with the important exceptions that the frame would be lashed with leather thongs and covered with bullhides, though the framework itself would resemble a modern curragh. Perhaps this did not matter for his particular archaeological experiment, but the purist might be very interested in Clive's conception.
(*I am no expert, do not quote me. But I define here a sapling as sapling, you know what it is, a baby tree, and a withe is a sapling that is twisted until the fibers separate but do not break, making a kind of "tree-rope" if you see what I mean, albeit a stiff rope. Withes were used for some lashings, and also to hobble the feet of cattle. They are so strong that the reconstructed 90 ft Viking ship, Stallion of Glendalough, recently home from sailing, had its side-rudder repaired with a withe when its leather contrivances failed at the high-stress location. Anyway, the new book, Traditional Boats of Ireland, has photos of coracles being built, and a brief write-up by Clive on modern uses of the revived coracles).
When I mentioned that "This is like the Brendan boat," Clive nodded, and perhaps is tired of the comparison for all I know. So let's call it a large ocean-going curragh, and add to that "pre-medieval" because it may become part of an archaeological experiment related to the construction of the prehistoric passage-graves of the Boyne, some of whose materials were evidently brought from dozens of miles away. As with the Stonehenge site, the Boyne valley monuments were further ritualized with exotic materials taken from afar.
I noticed the lines were a little different from the Brendan boat. The bow was very bluff, almost scow-like. Clive felt this was the better rendition, and if he is going at some point to try to carry large stones up river in the boat, the extra few pounds of buoyancy there might help. There was no time to pick his brain further on this, so I'll leave the hypothesizing at that.
His lashing method was to temporarily lash the saplings with synthetic line before committing himself to lashing with the leather thongs. Since this boat is a reconstruction with a little less than usual to go on -- a thought-experiment as much as an archaeological experiment -- and since recessional Ireland is probably not pouring money into his project, saving materials like this is perhaps a good and necessary idea.
End of Part I. Go on to part II