The day we failed to push the boat out

ANOTHER LIFE:ONE FINE SUMMER Sunday afternoon 30 years ago, in perhaps the least-well-considered phase of the Vineys's sorties into self-sufficiency, our brand new currach was carried down to the sea for the first time, writes Michael Viney

Mine was the third pair of shoulders beneath the shiny, 18-foot carapace, and I have never known such crushing, insupportable weight: at any moment, my spine was going to fold or my legs be driven down into the sand. In those 20 or 30 fraught paces to the waves, the original notion that Ethna and I could launch a currach in this manner by ourselves was revealed as thoroughly mad.

The first two sets of shoulders, needless to say, were those of burly and amiable neighbours, and Sunday afternoon was their only time for indulging in such optional effort. All other fine days were spoken for by the serious priorities of silage, potatoes or the bog, and certainly not to be gambled on a share of a hypothetical catch from our equally untried trammel net.

After a couple of hauls of seaweed and crabs, and the steady failure of Sunday to coincide with fine weather and the right sort of tide, the currach was lifted on the prongs of a tractor and deposited above a sandy notch in the rocks further along the shore. In Plan B, the pair of us would manage the currach the right way up, on rollers. An ancient winch was obtained from the Dublin docks and cemented into place. It had been geared, as we then discovered, to haul a very much bigger boat - perhaps the Titanic - very slowly indeed.

I think I'll stop there. Enough to say that the project was put on hold, so to speak, while I learned more about growing food rather than catching it. For two or three autumns I hiked along the shore with a can of liquid tar to give the canvas hull a fresh coat, which at least paid off when the currach was sold into more capable hands. The winch, too, disappeared mysteriously one winter, being made of highly saleable bronze.

The extent of my original ignorance, fortunately never punished by the sea, has been revived by browsing a monumental book just published by the Collins Press of Cork. Traditional Boats of Ireland: History, Folklore and Construction, edited by Críostóir Mac Cárthaigh, gives 657 pages and a wealth of illustration to the infinite variety of the inshore craft of this island. At €60 hardback, the research and production needed support by half a dozen public agencies and the Heritage Council.

In a revelation of boat design matched to purpose and environment, its 60 distinct boat types range from big clinker-built wherries and carvel-built trawlers to cutters, hookers, seine boats, skiffs, smacks and yawls. Currachs, above all, were as organic as a boat could get, built originally of local hides and timber and still shaped to fit the local coastal waters, with their distinctive winds and waves. Local craftsmen, too, have put an individual stamp on the contours of their boats, which I suppose is some excuse for the eccentricity of Críostóir Mac Cárthaigh in insisting that currach is spelled in the English text with one "r" throughout the book, pleading historical accuracy and better pronunciation.

Photographs of currachs being carried by two men go some way to explaining our original plan. What we hadn't appreciated (apart from the pertinent matter of our citified muscle-power) was that, while currachs may still be spoken of as "canoes", design had moved on considerably since the (relatively) lightweight boat of open latticework, propelled by oars. Even more to our purpose, I suspect, might have been the stubby, one-man paddling currach perfected in Donegal, but that needs deep and sheltered inlets.

In west Mayo, the currach was adapted to the Seagull outboard engine as early as 1946, led by Inishturk, the island in our kitchen window. The "canoe" built by the O'Tooles, the island's senior craftsmen, and duly delivered to our gate was thus the standard, robust, Inishturk model, with deep, heavy transom (for the engine) and steeply angled bow. It was closely-ribbed with oak and its hull was fully planked beneath the tarred canvas, to take the wear and tear of lobster fishing.

Today, it would probably be covered in fibreglass, which needs fewer ribs, lighter planking and no annual coat of tar.

A century ago, there were some 300 currachs in use in Mayo. Today, writes Mac Cárthaigh, there are perhaps 100 working currachs in the county (the one in my painting, buttressed with rocks against winter storms, has long vanished from the dunes). The currach is still the most convenient craft for a coast with so few slipways or piers - but only, perhaps, for men with a bit of Atlas in their genes.

EYE ON NATURE:

On a recent visit to the Great Blasket, I spotted two fine, healthy-looking hares, despite the Stationery Office publication saying there are no hares on the island.

Harry Conway, Blackrock, Co Dublin

I found what I think is a fossilised shark tooth, three-centimetre long on Sandymount beach (photo provided).

Eoin Mac Ionmhain

It looks like a fossilised shark's tooth. Head for the Natural History Museum.

How do birds know that bread on the ground is bread rather than something else?

Kathleen Speight (7), Braade, Co Fermanagh

Birds have very sharp vision and learn from experience as well.

My parents saw an animal in their Limerick garden gathering seeds from a withering sunflower. US visitors said it was a chipmunk.

Eoin Curtin, Limerick

It must have been a red squirrel. Chipmunks, which belong to the squirrel family, are not found in Ireland.

While walking in Currane, Achill we came across a caterpillar about 75mm-100mm long and as thick as my little finger. It was grey/black, had four eyes on one end and a horn on the other.

Padraig Mc Hugh, 5 Davis Place, Dublin 8

It was the caterpillar of the elephant hawkmoth, which is plentiful this year.

Michael Viney welcomes observations at Thallabawn, Carrowniskey PO, Westport, Co Mayo; e-mail: viney@anu.ie. Include a postal address.