Curraghs

Curraghs are an ancient type of boat native to Irish shores, built by sewing a tough skin of ox-hides over a light, canoe-like frame of wooden splints, driven by oars and a square sail of woollen cloth. Canvas-covered versions are still used as fishing skiffs in western Ireland today, and are genuinely seaworthy in heavy weather — vessels like these once carried Irish explorers as far as the Faroe Islands and Iceland, and were a common sight in the channel between Campbeltown, Rathlin, and Ballycastle.

Their deep-sea capability was proven for the modern world in 1976–77, when the adventurer Timothy Severin crossed the Atlantic from Ireland to Newfoundland in a leather-hulled replica named Brendan, recreating the legendary sixth-century voyage of the Irish monk Saint Brendan. A full-size replica curragh — the “Iona Curragh,” used in 1963 to recreate St. Colmcille’s 6th-century crossing to Iona — is on display at The Harbour Museum in Derry~Londonderry.