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Updated: May 23, 2025
They sail their new boats their hookers in English, but they sail a curagh oftener in Irish, and in the fields they have the Irish alone. It can never die out, and when the people begin to see it fallen very low, it will rise up again like the phoenix from its own ashes. 'And the Gaelic League? I asked him. 'The Gaelic League!
Early this morning the man of the house came over for me with a four-oared curagh that is, a curagh with four rowers and four oars on either side, as each man uses two and we set off a little before noon. It gave me a moment of exquisite satisfaction to find myself moving away from civilisation in this rude canvas canoe of a model that has served primitive races since men first went to sea.
He is a skilled fisherman, and can manage a curagh with extraordinary nerve and dexterity He can farm simply, burn kelp, cut out pampooties, mend nets, build and thatch a house, and make a cradle or a coffin. His work changes with the seasons in a way that keeps him free from the dullness that comes to people who have always the same occupation.
In other countries where the names are in a somewhat similar condition, as in modern Greece, the man's calling is usually one of the most common means of distinguishing him, but in this place, where all have the same calling, this means is not available. Late this evening I saw a three-oared curagh with two old women in her besides the rowers, landing at the slip through a heavy roll.
Each bullock was caught in its turn and girded with a sling of rope by which it could be hoisted on board. Another rope was fastened to the horns and passed out to a man in the stem of the curagh. Then the animal was forced down through the surf and out of its depth before it had much time to struggle.
In bad weather four men will often stand for nearly an hour at the top of the slip with a curagh in their hands, watching a point of rock towards the south where they can see the strength of the waves that are coming in. The instant a break is seen they swoop down to the surf, launch their curagh, and pull out to sea with incredible speed.
It became too rough afterwards to make the return journey, and it was only this morning we saw them repassing towards the south-east in a terrible sea. A four-oared curagh with two men in her besides the rowers probably the Priest and the Doctor went first, followed by the three-oared curagh from the south island, which ran more danger.
Again, a curagh with two light people in it floats on the water like a nut-shell, and the slightest inequality in the stroke throws the prow round at least a right angle from its course. In the first half-hour I found myself more than once moving towards the point I had come from, greatly to Michael's satisfaction. This morning we were out again near the pier on the north side of the island.
We passed Dunmore Head, and then stood Out nearly due west towards the Great Blasket itself, the height of the mountains round the bay and the sharpness of the rocks making the place singularly different from the sounds about Aran, where I had last travelled in a curagh.
'I have been to the house where the young man is, she said, 'but I couldn't go to the door with the air was coming out of it. They say his head isn't on him at all, and indeed it isn't any wonder and he three weeks in the sea. Isn't it great danger and sorrow is over every one on this island? I asked her if the curagh would soon be coming back with the priest.
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