McDonald’s boatyard on Donegal’s Inishowen peninsula is undertaking what may be the last restoration of a drontheim in Ireland.
As reported by RTÉ Radio 1 Countrywide, Brian McDonald and Bernard Barr, first cousins and sixth-generation shipwrights, have been working on the 27-foot vessel at the boatyard in Greencastle.
The clinker-built larch on oak vessel was originally built in 1950 by the McDonalds for the Ferry family of Donegal’s Inishbofin.
The cost was recorded back then at £150, including delivery.
Cousins Bernard Barr (left) and Brian McDonald with the last restoration of a drontheim in Ireland
“Half the side was gone out of it,”Brian told Countrywide, recalling the state of the drontheim when it arrived.
The careful restoration includes using copper rivets at three euro a nail.
The drontheim or Greencastle yawl is based on a Norwegian design – as recorded by maritime historian Donal MacPolin.
The last working vessel of this type is in Greencastle’s maritime museum.
Drontheim restoration photo gallery by Donal McPolin
Originally Clan Ranald from the isle of Skye, the McDonald family sought refuge at the top of Lough Foyle along with other Jacobite Scots after the 1745 rebellion.
The yard’s order books date back to the 1700s, with the first such records kept on Skye. The McDonalds have given some of the tools they no longer use to the local maritime museum.
Brian and Bernard are the last generation to work at McDonalds, where orders have mainly been for fibreglass fishing and aquaculture vessels in recent decades.
They have retained all their shipwright skills in timber, but acknowledge that this is not a skill valued by the Irish state – unlike Norway.
“If we hadn’t been here to do this boat, it would have had to be broken up,” they told the programme.
Listen to the full interview on RTÉ Countrywide here
