curragh

Even though the vessel Brendan would have sailed, a craft called a curragh and used by Irish fisher folk for centuries, was much smaller, the beautiful brig, with its billowing sails and creaking masts, was a symbol of St. Brendan's unlikely crossing.

SUNK 2008

Welsh and Irish rivers, and known as a curragh or coracle; made of an osier frame covered with tanned and oiled skins.

Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic Thomas Wentworth Higginson 1867

The medieval text Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis The Voyage of St Brendan the Abbot tells how St Brendan and a crew of 17 Irish monks built themselves a leather curragh and set sail west over the ocean in search of the Promised Land.

Archive 2008-08-01 Carla 2008

Reconstructing a sixth-century ocean-going curragh required designing the boat itself, based on expertise in naval architecture and a single illustration in a medieval manuscript, then identifying and then sourcing the right kind of leather, the right kind of grease for preserving and waterproofing it, the right kind of flax thread for ropes and stitching, and the right kind of wood for the strong but flexible frame.

The Brendan Voyage, by Tim Severin. Book review Carla 2008

The medieval text Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis The Voyage of St Brendan the Abbot tells how St Brendan and a crew of 17 Irish monks built themselves a leather curragh and set sail west over the ocean in search of the Promised Land.

The Brendan Voyage, by Tim Severin. Book review Carla 2008

Reconstructing a sixth-century ocean-going curragh required designing the boat itself, based on expertise in naval architecture and a single illustration in a medieval manuscript, then identifying and then sourcing the right kind of leather, the right kind of grease for preserving and waterproofing it, the right kind of flax thread for ropes and stitching, and the right kind of wood for the strong but flexible frame.

Archive 2008-08-01 Carla 2008

(In the late 70s, the sailor/historian Tim Severin recreated the journey in a curragh he built with tools and materials that would have been available to Brendan.)

SUNK 2008

In her curragh of shells of daughter of pearl and her silverymonnblue mantle round her.

Finnegans Wake 2006

Britain; Scotland rang with thy exploits, and England, too, north of the Humber; strange deeds also didst thou achieve when, fleeing from justice, thou didst find thyself in the Sister Isle; busy wast thou there in town and on curragh, at fair and race-course, and also in the solitary place.

Lavengro 2004

The curragh which was promised might be a man, a horse, a cart, or chaise; and no more could be got from the man with the battle-axe but a repetition of ‘Aich ay! ta curragh.’

Waverley 2004