If you’re sailing some evening in the fair wind of a gentle summery westerly from the Blaskets northeastward towards the Aran Islands, you may find that you can look west and enjoy half a dozen sunsets. Somewhere at sea north of Mount Brandon, the biggest ocean swells to come in from the Atlantic towards Ireland can sweep harmlessly by on their way to their foaming destruction on the cliffs of County Clare.
With your safe offing, you can enjoy the multi-sunset panorama without a breaking wave to be seen. But the repeated presence of these quiet horizon-lifting monsters is a reminder that, somewhere in the distant reaches of the Atlantic, there has been – and indeed still may be – a significant storm.
Irresistible force, immovable object? The rugged coast of County Clare is seen at its most spectacular in the Cliffs of Moher
EXPOSED COAST
You’ll be well into a snug Connemara anchorage if and when that storm arrives. But meanwhile back on that magnificent but very exposed Clare coast – 47 open miles of it from Black Head past the Cliffs of Moher down to Loop Head - the people making a living from land and sea have to make do with interacting with the sea as best they can, operating from partially-sheltered harbours that are often little more than nooks and crannies in the cliffs.
The classic curachs of this coast have evolved over centuries to cope with the ultra-challenging conditions. And one particular builder, John Cully Marrinan of Corbally near Kilkee, became so skilled at building and repairing the boats that he was kept busy until well into his 90s in the 1950s.
Cully Marrinan with his descendants and the boat under construction in 1956, as photographed by Seamus McGrath of the Irish Folklore Commission.
LAST BOAT A REAL CLASSIC
One of the last boats he built was for the Harte family of Kilkee in 1956. Not only were her lines taken off by the sculptor Holger Lonze in 1957, but she has endured sufficiently well for 70 years to be well worth restoring, This is very different from a re-build project, and is a special Leader-funded task that has been undertaken by the multi-talented Criostoir Mac Carthaigh at his workshop at Tullaher deep in the Clare countryside.
If Criostoir didn’t exist, it would take at least ten people to replace him, so extensive has his work been in every aspect of worthwhile preservation and recording of traditional and classic culture. His projects have included co-editing, with Hal Sisk and others, that massive tome Traditional Boats of Ireland published in 2008. But for now, he is in the happily hands-on project of sympathetically restoring the definitive Cully Marrinan currach.
Seventy years ago, the local newshounds of the Clare Champion were onto the story. Courtesy Maura Hanrahan
ARTIST IN HIS STUDIO?
This is definitely something to behold, and recently the artist in his studio was visited (interrupted?) by a delegation from Kilrush, led by Seol Sionna founder and chairman Richard “Dixie” Collins, and including Steve Morris of Kilrush boatyard (where James Madigan is building a couple of new four-oared currachs), plus Seol Sionna volunteers Owynn and Mary Collins, renowned currach oarsman Michael Moloney, and local historian and wildlife preservation activist Joe Hassett.
The two new Kilrush currachs will be heading for a traditional festival in Spain early in the season. But we daren’t ask whether the last Cully Marrinan currach is headed that way too, for we’re talking sacred relics here.
With the very special currach in the restoration shed are (left to right) Seol Sionna founder/chairman Richard “Dixie” Collins, Owynn & Mary Collins at bow, leading oarsman Michael Maloney, local historian and wildlife activist Joe Hassett, and Criostoir Mac Carthaigh. Photo by Steve Morris.
