REPRINTED FROM THE MARINER'S MIRROR, vol. XXIV, No. 1, JANUARY 1938

(The Quarterly Journal of the Society for Nautical Research)

[All rights reserved] PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

THE CURRAGHS OF IRELAND

'By James Hornell

Part III

COUNTY SLIGO

Formerly curraghs were in use both on the mainland of this county and in Inismurray, and we have an interesting account by Beranger in his Tour of Connaught¹ , published in 1779, of how the first thing that attracted his attention when visiting Inismurray was a curragh made of basketwork, covered with the hide of a horse or a cow. He says: "As the members were six or eight inches apart and the sun was shining bright, and the skin transparent, it seemed to me to be a vessel of glass, as I could see the water through it."

The truth of this curious statement of the transparency of the hide receives collateral confirmation in two passages in Bishop Heber's Indian Journal² In these he mentions with interest that shields carried by certain Baroda cavalrymen were covered with "rhinoceros-hide as transparent as horn". The presumption is that such hide was used untanned.

COUNTY MAYO

Following the west coast southward from Donegal, the next distinctive curragh centres to-day are found in county Mayo. Here, and more particularly in the little fishing harbours of the Mullet, Blacksod Bay, Achil Island and the small isles off coast, the curragh continues to flourish as the craft most favoured in use by inshore fishermen.

These curraghs, together with those to be described from Connemara, differ from all other Irish types; instead of narrow stringers forming the outer members of a latticework frame, the bottom and sides are completely covered with thin planking

I "Memoir of Gabriel Beranger", by Sir W. R. Wilde; Journ. of the Roy. Hist. and Arch. Ass, of Ireland, 4th series, I, 135; III 459.

2 Narrative of a journey through the Upper Provinces of India. . . in 1824-25, 3rd ed., III, 2 and 5.