The Achill Yawl: vernacular boats in historical context on Achill … · 2015-07-20 · maritime trade, 12th-century Anglo-Norman settle-ment in the area around Dublin, the establishment

The Achill Yawl: vernacular boats in historical context onAchill Island, Ireland

Chuck MeideLighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP), St Augustine Lighthouse & Museum, 81 LighthouseAvenue, St Augustine, FL 32080, USA

Kathryn SikesDept of Anthropology, College of William and Mary, PO Box 8795, Williamsburg, VA 23187–8795, USA

Achill yawls, originally introduced to Ireland as ships’ boats aboard Norwegian merchantmen, developed into distinct workingvessels along Achill Island’s shores during the 19th century. These boats were subsequently modified for recreational racing inthe mid-20th century. Despite changes to their design, they are often nostalgically viewed as traditional symbols of an Achillislander identity, though their popularity may have been prompted by late-19th-century British legislation. The authors take anethnographic approach in interpreting Achill yawls over time, contextualizing their social functions through an exploration ofprimary historical and photographic archives, extant vessels, and interviews with Achill islanders.

© 2010 The Authors

Key words: Achill Island, Ireland, community identity, maritime cultural landscape, vernacular watercraft, yawl.

Located off the remote coast of County Mayobetween Clew and Blacksod Bays, Achill is Ire-land’s largest island, and the most westerly

inhabited land in Europe (Fig. 1). It is separated fromCorraun Peninsula on the mainland by Achill Sound, anarrow tidal inlet known for its dangerous currents,though Corraun residents nevertheless consider them-selves to be Achill folk. As the island home of seafaringcommunities, Achill has a rich and vibrant maritimehistory of fishing and boatbuilding, the focus of abroad archaeological survey undertaken by ChuckMeide between 2004 and 2006 (Meide, 2006; Meideand Turner, 2007). Vernacular watercraft, shipwrecks,piers, and other material aspects of the regional mari-time cultural landscape of the 19th and early-20thcenturies were recorded for this project in an effort tounderstand the ways in which Achill’s maritime mat-erial culture played central social, political, and eco-nomic roles during Ireland’s political and religiousstrife as a part of the United Kingdom throughout thestudy period.

Over the course of the 2005 field-season the authorsrecorded the hulls and drafted plans for two extantopen wooden boats. The study of these vessels wasconducted in close consultation with documentaryresearch as well as with oral histories drawn from bothformal interviews and casual interactions with localresidents. As representatives of the ‘Achill yawl’, a

localized type of wooden rowing and sailing craftwhich proliferated on Achill in the 19th century, weargue that these vessels have become symbolic of alocal Achill islander identity, though their form andpopularity are the result of economic and politicalcontact with outsiders. An examination of the socialroles performed by Achill yawls speaks eloquently ofdaily lives within Achill’s fishing communities over thepast two centuries.

Throughout this study, we accept an emic boattypology and terminology in which most local resi-dents recognize Achill yawls as a distinct type of craft,in spite of the fact that earlier examples of the typeshare many traits with other regional yawls, andlater examples exhibit radically different constructiondetails, as will be demonstrated below. We includethorough descriptions and illustrations of representa-tives of the Achill-yawl type, but the symbolic meaningor social relevance of any piece of material culturecannot be understood without a thoughtful examina-tion of its historical context. As anthropologically-trained nautical archaeologists, our ultimate aim is notmerely to describe the boats’ construction, but ratherto examine what such details meant to the boatwrightswho built them as well as the island families whorelied on them for transportation and subsistence.How and why is the ‘Achill yawl’ recognized as a dis-tinct and local boat-type in spite of recent changes to

The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2011) 40.2: 235–255doi: 10.1111/j.1095-9270.2010.00297.x

© 2010 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2010 The Nautical Archaeology Society.Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

its configuration? What did the yawls of Achill sym-bolize to the people who used this type of craft, as wellas to outsiders? The answers to these questions are tobe found in Achill’s political and social history as muchas in its maritime cultural traditions.

We argue more broadly that the Achill yawl is butone example in which vernacular watercraft restrictedto particular regions are inherently tied to a sense oflocal history and community identity. These boats arerecognized as familiar in their home waters and asforeign outside their normal range of travel. By con-trast, standardized vessels built to plan and intended forbroader geographic distribution are not closely con-nected to any particular regional or cultural identity. OnAchill, local yawls as vernacular vessels served to rein-force existing ethnic boundaries by asserting an Irishislander presence within a contested maritime land-scape on which members of the British coastguard andother government officials increasingly encroached.Achill’s 19th- and early-20th-century history, lifeways,and maritime traditions are therefore vital to an under-standing of its vernacular boats, in the recent past as inthe present.

Achill’s historical contextDuring the 19th century, Achill, like Ireland itself, wasplagued by religious, economic, and political conflicts.Ireland had experienced a long and often contentioushistory of cultural contact with Great Britain, includingextensive medieval and post-medieval Anglo-Irishmaritime trade, 12th-century Anglo-Norman settle-

ment in the area around Dublin, the establishment ofBritish colonial plantations in Munster and Ulsterduring the 16th and 17th centuries, and numerousreligiously- and politically-motivated conflicts. Irelandin its entirety was subject to direct British rule as part ofthe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Irelandthroughout the period under study, from the passage ofthe Act of Union in 1800 until the establishment of theIrish Free State (later Republic of Ireland) in 1922.

Ireland’s lack of independence during this time wasstrongly opposed by the majority of its population.Until Catholic Emancipation in 1829, political repre-sentation was limited not only by landholding andwealth, but by religion, open only to practising Angli-cans. Following the extension of full citizenship toCatholic residents, marked social inequality continuedbetween a Protestant minority generally aligned withBritish imperial interests, and a vast Irish-speakingCatholic majority of tenants and landless labourers,who supplemented their seasonal subsistence farmingby fishing and gathering mussels from small boats.Conflicts between Irish communities and British offi-cials charged with regulating farming, fishing, andfood imports were particularly prominent during theGreat Famine, c.1845–50, which caused the death ordiaspora of more than two million Irish people(Canny, 1988; Foster, 1989; Kennedy, 1996; Canny,2001; Bew, 2007).

On Achill, divisions between Irish and British fac-tions were entangled with local struggles for controlover religious ideology. Protestant missionary Rever-end Edward Nangle founded a mission on the north

Figure 1. Map of Achill Island in County Mayo, on the west coast of Ireland. (K. Sikes and C. Meide)

NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 40.2

236 © 2010 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2010 The Nautical Archaeology Society

side of the island at Dugort in 1831 (Whelan, 1987;McDonald, 1997: 106–213; Ní Ghiobúin, 2001). Fol-lowing the precepts of 19th-century British evangelism,the mission’s aim was to convert the indigenouspopulation to Protestantism (Whelan, 1987). Nangleimported the island’s only printing press to produceAchill’s first monthly newspaper, the Achill MissionaryHerald, which frequently included anti-Catholiceditorials. While he strove to have a positive impact onpoverty-stricken islanders, Nangle was accused ofunderhand tactics by the island’s Catholic residents(and later by historians), such as withholding food atmission soup kitchens during the Famine from thosewho refused to convert (Ní Ghiobúin, 2001: 65). Thoseislanders who, through religious principles, did notpartake of missionary bread during crop failures, wereprobably those who were most reliant on the sea andtheir boats for nourishment.

Subsistence activities on 19th-century Achill fluctu-ated with the seasons. Dairy herding here, as in muchof the rest of Ireland, involved biannual relocation ofcattle to fresh pasture, a practice known as ‘booleying’.Most island communities therefore alternated betweentwo villages or townlands and their associated pasture(O’Donovan and O’Conor, 1867; Horning, 2007: 363–4). In addition, wage-labour involved seasonal migra-tion for many islanders (McDonald, 1997: 226–9;Dunn, 2008). Younger men would leave to work inScotland or England from late May to September.Some older or married men would remain behind,

however, allowing boats to fish off Achill Island year-round, though their catch varied by season—pollockor mackerel being plentiful in summer, followed byshoals of herring during the autumn, and finally cod(and to a lesser extent whiting and haddock) betweenDecember and March (Kilbane, 2001: 21–31; Cunnaneet al., 2008: 146–7).

The First Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry intothe State of the Irish Fisheries of 1836 (hereafter Fish-eries Inquiry) provides some insight into the characterof official British governmental administration onthe island, as well as the frequency of small-boat use on19th-century Achill. The report details the correspon-dence and travel accounts of British officers who werecharged with inspecting and documenting the opera-tion of Ireland’s fisheries. Examining CommissionerJohn Jagoe visited Achill on 20 February 1836, andAchill Beg two days later. The statistics compiledduring these visits attest to the prominence of localvernacular boat-types on the island and their con-tribution to the subsistence of islander families. TheFisheries Inquiry concluded that some 3768 fisher-men worked in all of County Mayo, with 94%working from rowed wooden planked vessels(such as Achill’s yawls) or from Irish curraghs (Fig. 2),another common local vernacular boat traditionallyconstructed of hides or tarred canvas stretched over awicker or light wooden framework (see Hornell, 1938;Evans, 1939; McCaughan, 1983: 162–5; Mac Cullagh,1992; Tully, 1996; Porter, 1998; Mac Cárthaigh, 2001;

Figure 2. The fishing community at Dooagh village on Achill surrounded by their curraghs, c.1890s. (detail of photograph byWilliam Mervin Lawrence, courtesy of the National Library of Ireland)

C. MEIDE & K. SIKES: THE ACHILL YAWL

© 2010 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2010 The Nautical Archaeology Society 237

Danaher, 2003; Tully, 2003; Breen and Forsythe, 2004:142–6; Mac Cárthaigh, 2008).

Mayo fishermen were more dependent on smallboats than their neighbours to the south in CountyGalway (where only 68% of 8500 fishermenoperated from rowing-boats) or to the north inCounty Sligo (where 77% of 1294 men used suchvessels) (Fisheries Inquiry, 1836: 74, 91, 118). OnAchill Island specifically, 282 fishermen were docu-mented, all working from oared vessels. There were52 fishing-boats in all, with an average of five to sixmen per boat (Fisheries Inquiry, 1836: 91). The samereport estimated the population of the island at justunder 4000 people, most of whom were primarilydependent on their potato crops and milk from theircattle. These figures suggest that vernacular boatsmade regular but relatively marginal contributions toAchill family diets.

Intriguingly, 19th-century documentation impliesthat, on Achill, vernacular rowing-boats such as the52 vessels noted by the Fisheries Inquiry were oftenshared among neighbouring households, cementingcommunity ties. For instance, in 1847 Nangle’s AchillMissionary Herald stated of 13 fishing curraghs con-fiscated by British officials: ‘these little boats contrib-uted largely to the support of six and twenty families’(1847: 68). This statement suggests not only that atleast some islanders relied heavily on boats for subsis-tence, but also that each boat may have been shared bytwo families. Likewise, oral histories indicate that onthe eastern portion of Achill, in the villages of AchillBeg, Cloghmore, Dereens, Shraheens, Corraun, Bel-farsad and Saula, every household that could afford itowned a yawl, and those who could not shared own-ership of a yawl with one or two other families(Kilbane, 2001: 10). The 52 boats recorded on theisland in 1836, therefore, probably would have ser-

viced over 100 households, presumably organizedthrough kinship ties and co-operative agreements(Meide and Sikes, forthcoming).

Achill’s vernacular boats had other uses in additionto providing families with food. In the 19th century,transportation by water provided a vital bond betweencommunities. Roads were poor or nonexistent onAchill, and boats were often the most convenient formof transport and communication. Photographs fromthe last decade of the 19th century attest to their use ingathering turf and seaweed (Fig. 3). Turf, used as fuelfor cooking and heating, was stripped from the bogsand transported for local use or exported to mainlanddestinations, while seaweed was collected in largemasses for local use as a fertilizer. Small vernacularboats were also used for ferrying people, domesticgoods, stone for construction projects, and livestock,and they served as pilots for the commercial shippingassociated with Westport, located east of Achill acrossClew Bay (Ní Ghallchoir, 1997; Kilbane, 2001;Cunnane et al., 2008).

Origins and construction ofthe Achill yawlThe double-ended, clinker-built yawl (after the Norwe-gian yol) was one of the local boat-types which facili-tated such a variety of activities on Achill. It had beenintroduced to the north-east coast of Ireland in themid-18th century on the decks of ships from Norway,the primary source of imported timber since thedepletion of Ireland’s forests (McCaughan, 1988a;McCaughan, 1988b: 36; Mac Polin, 1999: 6; Madill,2008: 52). These ships’ boats quickly became prized byIrish watermen and were increasingly imported (some-times requiring assembly) as a supplementary deckcargo (Mac Polin, 1999: 6). These imports, referred to

Figure 3. Two Achill yawls in use, loaded with large cargos of turf, c.1890s. The oarsmen of the boat at the right are clearlyvisible, one man to each oar. (detail of photograph by William Mervin Lawrence, courtesy of the National Library of Ireland)



as ‘Norway yawls’, ‘Norway skiffs’ or ‘drontheims’(after an early variant pronunciation of the Norwegianport of Trondheim), had good sea-keeping qualitiesbut were light enough to be hauled ashore on exposedcoasts with poor or non-existent harbour facilities.They typically measured 18–20 ft (c.5.5–6 m) long,with a beam of 5.5–6 ft (c.1.6–1.8 m). Equipped withfour oars and lug or sprit sails, these vessels became thepredominant open fishing-boat on the north and eastcoasts of Ireland by the time of their documentationby British regulators in 1836 (Fisheries Inquiry, 1836;McCaughan, 1988b: 35; McCaughan 1991: 135–6).

By this time, the remaining original Norway yawlswere close to the end of their working lives, as a sharpreduction in maritime trade coinciding with the Napo-leonic wars (1803–1815) had all but ended their impor-tation. Irish boatbuilders, who learned the traditionsof their craft through apprenticeships to experiencedcraftsmen (pers. comm. John O’Malley, 2005), beganby modifying imported yawls and progressed to build-ing local variants to suit their own purposes. Initialmodifications included adding strakes to increase free-board, straightening the stem, and using narrowerplanks in order to conserve scarce regional timberresources (McCaughan, 1978; McCaughan, 1991: 136;Mac Polin, 1999: 9). With the cessation of imports,boatbuilders on the north and east coasts continued toconstruct vessels based on the model of the Norwayyawl (Madill, 2008: 52). The successor to the Norwayyawl in Ulster is the Greencastle or Skerries yawl, stillknown as the ‘drontheim’ boat to this day (see MacPolin, 1999; McLaverty, 2008), but regional derivativeswith localized forms spread throughout the Irish coast.

Though clinker construction persisted as the dom-inant planking-method in the north-east of the country,it was replaced with locally preferred carvel planking asthe Norway yawl diffused to the west of Ireland, whereclinker planking appears to have been entirely absentfrom locally produced vessels (McCaughan, 1978: 9–12;McCaughan, 1983: 167–75; McCaughan, 1991;McCaughan, 2008: 6; Madill, 2008). The timing of thetransition to carvel hulls is uncertain, but the earliestreliable documentary evidence for coastal Ireland, the1836 Fisheries Inquiry (77), describes what are probablyyawls in the carvel style in the Ballycastle district ofnorthern County Mayo: ‘carvel-built, sharp at bothends, eighteen feet long, and six feet broad, with fouroars: they cost about eight guineas, and are consideredthe best for the coast’. Achill yawls therefore remaineddouble-ended in the Scandinavian tradition, but fol-lowed the regional preference of carvel construction.

According to Jim Corrigan, whose family lived onAchill Beg and operated yawls as pilots and fishermenfor several generations, traditional Achill yawls typi-cally ranged from c.19–23 ft (c.5.5–7 m) long. Theywere designed to be sturdy but lightweight workingboats. To this end, wooden treenails, rather than ironfasteners, were used in their construction, and the hull-planking was commonly of 1/2-inch (13-mm) ‘white

wood’ (probably ‘white deal’, presumably fir or pine).Corrigan reports that a yawl of 23 ft (c.7 m) couldeasily be lifted by two men, or a 19–20 ft (c.6 m) yawlcould be launched by four women (pers. comm. JimCorrigan, 2005; Meide, 2006: 114). Like their Norwe-gian predecessors, Achill yawls were light but strongenough to be launched, landed, and worked off opencoasts, fine-lined to be easily rowed or sailed, andcapable of carrying a sizeable cargo.

In 1941, second-generation boatbuilder SeánO’Malley of Corraun was interviewed by the Irish Folk-lore Commission (Maguidhir, 1941, cited in Kilbane,2001: 18–19). He provided a detailed description of theconstruction features in a typical Achill yawl:

All I have ever made was yawls, transom-sterned boats,and currachs because these are the types of boats ingeneral use in the fisheries here. The yawl is the mostcommon boat used, it’s what I make mostly { The yawl isfrom 18 to 21 feet [c.5.5 to 6.5 m] in the keel [an cl], andfrom five to six and one half feet [c.1.5 to 2 m] in the beam.As a rule the beam is one third of the keel length, and thedepth is about two and one half feet [c.76 cm] in thecentre. { There’s twenty-two [sawn oak] ribs or intimbersin a yawl like that. There are fourteen at the back [boltedto the keel] and the four front ones and the four back onesare bolted to the deadwood. { [The gunwale or an tslatboird, made of pine,] is three inches wide and one and ahalf inches deep [c.76 ¥ 38 mm] and it is in three sectionslengthways on each side. In the place where the gunwalejoins the bow [an ball tosaigh] and the stern [an balldeiridh], there is a little piece shaped like a triangle stuckthere to strengthen them. This is called the breast hook orbreast piece. { The planking (white deal) is fixed [with3/4-inch/19-mm nails] to the ribs and coming up outside thegunwale and level with it. { There are joints between theboards in the planking and these are filled with oakum andpitch [calcl].

O’Malley goes on to describe two platforms at the bowand stern, known as the forward spit or sole (an teiletosaigh) and the aft spit or sole (an teile deiridh). ‘Themiddle board [of the spits] is never nailed but laid inplace so that it can be removed easily to bail out theboat’. Additionally, the rear spit covers a plug or ‘holeto let out the water when the boat is on shore’. At thestern was a small seat ‘around six inches [15 cm] downfrom the gunwale { for the man who is steering theboat’. Four other thwarts or seats were sandwiched inplace by a lower stringer and shaped upper stringers[raingeanna and brigheanna]. These included the bowand stern thwarts (an tseas tosaigh and an tseas deiridh),the mast thwart (an tseas chrainn, placed directly abovethe mast-step), and a removable thwart (an tseas reatha)which would be taken out to accommodate particularlylarge cargos (Cunnane et al., 2008: 143).

Two to four staggered rowlocks (glainbns) were ‘aswide as the gunwale’ and each was fitted with two holesfor thole-pins (croga) to accommodate single-bankedsweeps (maid rmha) c.18 ft (5.5 m) long. Photographsof historical yawls in use (Figs 3–4) suggest that it may



have been more common to use only the forward pairof sweeps, though most yawls pictured in 19th-centuryphotographs reviewed by the authors appear to displaytwo pairs of rowlocks. Kilbane (2001: 19) notes that aspecialized rowlock was often fitted close to the bowfor use with bulky cargos of turf or seaweed.

The yawl’s mast, usually c.18 ft (5.5 m) long, wouldbe fitted into the mast-step (an ceap treo) which was‘about three and a half feet long and eight or nineinches wide’ (c.1.07 m by 203–229 mm) (Maguidhir,1941; Kilbane, 2001: 19). The mast was strapped inplace just aft of a mast thwart, which was notched toaccept it. The typical rig was a single dipping lugsail seton a yard, and a cleat (fiscn) was placed beneath thebreasthook to hold the tack-rope (Cunnane et al.,2008: 143). Sails were made of dyed calico, and sewntogether from 18-inch (c.46-cm) strips or leeches byisland women (Ní Ghallchoir, 1997: 43). Stone ballastwas positioned on stringers in the bottom of the yawl,and was removed before hauling the boat ashorebeyond the high-water mark. Boiled tar and pitch wasused to paint the boat after its initial construction, andeach year thereafter the yawl would be scraped andre-tarred as a preservative (Kilbane, 2001: 18–19;Cunnane et al., 2008: 143).

Social history of the Achill yawlFor over a century the Achill yawl played a prominentrole in social and economic life along the west Mayocoast, from the Inishkea Islands southwards acrossClew Bay to Clare Island. It is particularly associatedwith the eastern half of Achill, including the Corraunpeninsula, Achill Sound, and Achill Beg Island. Thisarea encompasses most of Achill’s sheltered waters,and was the focus of British pier construction duringthe late-19th century, unlike the exposed rocky shoresof western Achill where curraghs remained prevalent.While the more favourable conditions facilitated the

widespread use of yawls on the eastern half of Achill,the sharp-ended stern of the yawl did still allow landingin the area’s rough waters, most notably at AshleamBay (Kilbane, 2001: 33). The overall prominence of theyawl on Achill and Corraun is highlighted by an 1892baseline report to the Congested Districts Board,which recorded the presence of just three second-classhookers (larger, decked sailing vessels often associatedwith Galway), 11 third-class hookers, 35 curraghs, and226 yawls and wooden rowing-boats.

Yawls were not only numerous on Achill; they werecentral to daily life. Yawls full of stones built the bridgeacross Achill Sound in 1887 (Ní Ghallchoir, 1997: 43).They ferried goods and passengers across Achill Soundand from village to village. They also carried livestockfrom as far away as Clare Island and the Inishkeas tomarkets at the Sound and on the mainland (Cunnaneet al., 2008: 146). Every Sunday residents from AchillBeg, Corraun, and communities along the Sound trav-elled in their yawls to Mass at Kildownet, and at theend of their days these parishioners made one finalyawl voyage from as far away as Saula to the cemeteryat Kildownet for burial (Ní Ghallchoir, 1997: 43;Cunnane et al., 2008: 146).

Yawls, usually crewed by seven men, were also usedextensively for fishing (Kilbane, 2001: 21–31; Cunnaneet al., 2008: 146–7). Fishing for summer pollock ormackerel was carried out by trawling lines under sail.Yawls under oar power would fish for herring later inthe year using ring-nets some 11 fathoms (c.20 m)deep and 35 fathoms (c.64 m) long. These crewsworked in unison, reacting quickly and decisively withthe oars and anchor to successfully drop the netaround a herring shoal, and a good team could catchas many as 5000 herring in one outing. Winter codcrews fished by long line, each man providing his ownspiller (a 1/2-mile (0.8-km) line with 100 or more hooksbaited with red lugworms or eel), which would bedeployed and left out overnight. Two men would hold

Figure 4. An Achill yawl at Kildownet, c.1890s. (detail of photograph by William Mervin Lawrence, courtesy of the NationalLibrary of Ireland)



the yawl steady with oars while the others paid out orhauled in their spillets, and the men would have toretrieve their lines early the following morning evenwhen confronted with stormy weather. Whenever theyawl was loaded with a full catch, the men wouldreturn home under oar power only, sometimes for dis-tances as great as 16 km. Crews usually divided thefish on a share basis, with the owner of the yawlreceiving two shares. While much of the catch wouldbe salted for home consumption, a significant portionwould be sold to a buyer or ‘cadger’ who would thensell the fish locally, in Westport or Castlebar, or bytrain as far away as Dublin.

Yawls were also indispensable for transporting turf(Kilbane, 2001: 34–7; Cunnane et al., 2008: 147–8).While Achill is well known for its deep and extensivebogs (covering some 87% of its surface), turf is a scarceresource in the southern portion of the island, especiallyaround Dereens, Cloghmore, and Achill Beg. Villagersfrom these areas travelled by yawl up to seven miles toextract their turf from the bogs of Saula, north of AchillSound (Fig. 3). Turf was also exported to Westport viayawl or hooker (Ní Ghallchoir, 1997: 43). From Marchto May village men would cut the turf on the bogs ofSaula, while women loaded up the cured or ‘saved’ turffrom the previous year and carried it in baskets to theiryawls. Once loaded, it was often the women who wouldsail or row the boat back down the Sound and unload it.Local memory attests to the skill and endurance of theseisland women: ‘Every woman used to row. There werelots of women that were very good in a boat. Womenused to pull in the boat, bringing turf up from Saula upagainst the wind on the head of an oar. It was very hardon the women long ago, some of them being pregnant,themselves and their husbands coming up from Saula’(Anthony Kilbane, cited in Kilbane, 2001: 36). The turfwould be stacked five rows high above the gunwales, orhigher if the yawl was to be rowed instead of sailed(Cunnane et al., 2008: 147).

Seaweed or ‘wrack’ was another commodity trans-ported by yawl which was of critical importance to theagricultural economy of Achill and the surroundingregion (Kilbane, 2001: 37–40; Cunnane et al., 2008:148–9). Until the advent of artificial fertilizers in themid-20th century, seaweed was required to enrich thesoil in order to grow potatoes and, to a lesser extent,grain. Yawls would travel as far as the Bills or DooegaHead to collect wrack. Entire families would gatherdriftweed from the shoreline between Ashleam andCloghmore, tying the weed into massive clumps whichcould then be towed behind a yawl. An 18-ft yawlcould carry up to two tons of wrack. Yawls were alsoused to import limestone from the inner islands ofClew Bay, to be burned in kilns and used as a fertilizer(Ní Ghallchoir, 1997: 43). By their use in the acquisi-tion of vital nutrients for the soil, yawls were nearly asimportant to Achill’s primary agricultural subsistenceas they were to supplementing the local diet with fishand other marine life.

Achill yawls even played a role in international com-merce. Ships entering Clew Bay bound for Westport,a major commercial shipping destination, would begreeted by ‘outer bay’ pilots arriving by yawl fromvarious coastal villages on Achill. This activity washighly competitive, as related by Jim Corrigan (pers.comm., 2004). The Achill Beg pilot would sit on aparticular rock overlooking the Atlantic, scanning thehorizon with a spyglass, while his counterpart inDooega would do the same. When an incoming shipwas spotted, each would run to their yawls with a teamof rowers and race to meet the vessel, judging from thewind which way the ship would tack in order mostrapidly to intercept its anticipated course. The first toarrive would be taken on board and paid to guide theship as far east as Inishlyre, where an ‘inner bay’ pilotwould take over.

Friendlier, if no less competitive, yawl-races wereorganized as early as 1887 (Ní Ghallchoir, 1997: 44).Local memory credits William Pike, probably theisland’s largest landholder after the Achill Mission, forthe promotion of these contests, which became aprominent component of the island-wide sports festivalheld annually on 15 August. Traditional eventsincluded tug-o’-war and weight-throwing contests,horse-racing on beaches, and swimming competitionsacross the Sound, in addition to yawl-racing (Ní Gha-llchoir, 1997: 44; Kilbane, 2001: 45). Yawl-rowing con-tests were the most celebrated, though sailing raceswere popular as well. Only the best yawls wouldcompete from each village, with the strongest men atthe sweeps (four oarsmen with an additional hand atthe tiller). Participating yawls were working vessels ineveryday use, rather than vessels specifically designedfor speed. One islander remembers that in the racesheld before 1933, ‘the Cloghmore men were unbeatableon rowing and Achill Beg, because, they were used to itevery day on the sea’ (Anthony Kilbane, cited inKilbane, 2001: 36). Yawls travelled from as far away asBlacksod Bay and Clare Island to participate in thesummer regattas, held throughout July and August,and Achill men also travelled to race elsewhere alongthe western coast.

The Gallagher yawlThere is at least one yawl still in use on Achill whichappears to conform to the design of its 19th-centurypredecessors. Currently owned by Dennis Gallagher, itis believed to be at least 85 and perhaps more than 100years old. It was built by Tomás O’Malley (possiblywith the assistance of his son Seán), whose family ship-yard remains active on Corraun overlooking the yawl’scurrent location (pers. comm. John O’Malley, 2005).Tomás O’Malley was originally a weaver from ClareIsland who settled on Corraun in the late-19th century.According to local memory, he learned how to buildyawls from a journeyman boatwright and became aprofessional boatbuilder himself, a trade his grandsons



continue to practise (Kilbane, 2001: 41; pers. comm.John O’Malley, 2005, 2006; Cunnane et al., 2008: 142).

The Gallagher yawl was recorded at a harbour onCorraun peninsula by the authors in August 2005. Itwas levelled and plumbed on the foreshore as the tideebbed, and the authors took its lines from the port sideat five frame-stations (Fig. 5). Scantlings and construc-tion details of the yawl’s interior were then recorded onthe following high tide. The rudder was documentedon a separate occasion. All frames, thwarts, androwlocks were numbered from bow to stern. All longi-tudinal timbers were numbered inboard to outboard,and lowest to uppermost, from the centreline at thekeel to the caprail.

Dennis Gallagher’s yawl (Figs 6–9) fits comfortablywithin the range of dimensions described by SeánO’Malley in 1941. The boat measures 21 ft 5 in(6.528 m) long between perpendiculars or just under22 ft (6.7 m) overall, with a beam of 6 ft (1.83 m) and adepth of hold of 2 ft 5 in (0.736 m). The keel is approxi-mately 18 ft (5.486 m) long, yielding the 1:3 beam-to-keel length ratio cited by O’Malley. These proportionsare appropriate for a working vessel intended to carryfull cargoes, rather than to race or outrun other vessels.Only 21 frames were observed, normally composed ofa floor plus one or two staggered futtocks for eachframe. It is possible that a 22nd canted frame is present

at the far stem or stern, but was inaccessible to theauthors during the recording process. Stations for thelines of the yawl (Figs 5–6) were taken at frames 3, 6,11, 16, and 19.

The yawl’s frame components overlap at each joint,except for the 16th frame, which is doubled throughoutfor reasons that are unclear. The doubled frame doesnot appear to be necessary for structural support.Floors are positioned aft of their first futtock, a patternwhich does not change at the midships frame. Theframes generally measure 3 inches (76 mm) in mouldedheight at the floors (except at bow and stern where theyare slightly more substantial), and taper to 21/4 inches(57 mm) in moulded height at the uppermost futtock.Individual frame-timbers range from 11/4 to 2 inches(c.3–5 cm) sided. Small rectangular limber-holes (typi-cally 3/8 inches moulded by 5/8 sided, or c.10 ¥ 15 mm)are cut into each floor on either side of the keelabove the garboard strake. The frames are planked withnine hull-strakes. They support caprails matchingO’Malley’s stated dimensions exactly, at 31/2 inches(89 mm) sided width by 11/2 inches (38 mm) mouldedheight. Small triangular breast-pieces are found at theunion between starboard and port caprails at both bowand stern.

The Gallagher yawl’s keel is 2 inches (5 cm) in sidedwidth, and estimated at c.6 inches (152 mm) moulded

Figure 5. Kathryn Sikes recording the lines of the Gallagher yawl on Corraun Peninsula. The mast and furled sail lies acrossthe thwarts with the oars. In the background is the O’Malley family boatyard, where this yawl was built c.80–100 years ago.(C. Meide)



Figure 6. Lines of the Gallagher yawl. Oar dimensions are approximate. (K. Sikes)



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height, based on its visible outboard extent and esti-mated hull-plank thickness. The yawl’s keel assemblydoes not include a keelson, though both stemson andsternson are present, along with a substantial shoe (41/4

inches or 108 mm moulded height at the stern) whichtapers forward to end below the third frame assembly,creating a slight drag. A rectangular mast-step 271/2

inches (688 mm) long x 6 inches (152 mm) sided widthx 2 inches (51 mm) moulded thickness, with a mortisefor the foot of the mast, 31/4 inches (83 mm) long x 21/4

inches (64 mm) sided width, is located between theninth and tenth frames, slightly forward of midships(frame 11). The yawl’s mast-step is therefore signifi-cantly smaller than those described by Seán O’Malley.

One pair of stringers, 13/4 inch (45 mm) sided widthx 1/4 inch (19 mm) moulded thickness, flanks the mast-ste, just below the turn of the bilge. A second, widerpair, 21/2 inches (64 mm) sided width x 11/2 inches(38 mm) moulded thickness, runs inboard of the eighth

hull strake, supporting four thwarts 1–2 inches (25–51 mm) thick and ranging from 71/2–10 inches (191–254 mm) wide. The thwarts are sandwiched betweenthis second stringer and three shorter, shaped stringers,as Seán O’Malley’s thwarts were. The mast is securelybraced by the tenth frame aft of its foot and by themast thwart slightly forward of midships. This thwartfeatures a notch and straps to hold the mast in place.Triangular spits or soles fashioned from 1/2-inch (13-mm) planking are found at either end of the vessel, asdescribed by Seán O’Malley.

The Gallagher oars (Fig. 6) may also provide evi-dence of a manner of rowing which is consistent with19th-century rowing-boats in the region. They aresquare in section, with round handles and a blade thattapers toward the tip. Long, trapezoidal timbers arepaired to secure the oar within the rowlock, whichconsists of two rather tall and loosely-spaced thole-pins, mounted on trapezoidal timbers. The battened

Figure 9. Isometric view of a section of the Gallagher yawl’s hull, from the 9th to 13th frames. (K. Sikes)



square shafts and fixed rowlocks appear to prevent theoar from shifting easily between feather (parallel tothe water’s surface) and square (perpendicular tothe surface) positions. According to contemporaryaccounts, British and Irish styles of rowing small boatsdiffered slightly, contributing to Irish reluctance toadopt new vessel-forms on Achill. The FisheriesInquiry contains the following report of the oars ofIrish double-ended rowing-boats (presumably yawls)in northern County Mayo: ‘their oars are battened inthe way of the rowlocks, and are consequently neverfeathered for pulling’ (Fisheries Inquiry, 1836: 77). Thisdescription appears to refer to oars much like thoseof Dennis Gallagher’s yawl, where the ‘battens’ wouldhave secured each oar in its rowlock, preventing theoar-blade from assuming a position parallel to thewater surface at any time during the rowing cycle.The British observation that the habitual gestures of19th-century Irish rowers were foreign in appearancesuggests that the reverse was also true; the postures andmovements of men in British rowing-boats may havediffered from that of Achill fishermen, identifying themat sea as members of another nationality and maritimetradition.

On the whole, the Gallagher yawl appears not onlyto be strikingly similar in design to the late-19th-century boats constructed by O’Malley, but alsodemonstrates overwhelmingly similar constructionpatterns to Achill yawls photographed in the 1890s byWilliam Mervin Lawrence (Figs 3–4). Among a dozenyawls pictured in nine historical photographs exam-ined by the authors, all have an upright stem and aslightly-raked sharp-ended stern similar to the Gal-lagher yawl. Although it cannot be determined inmost of the photographs whether the vessels picturedhad sternson and stemson timbers, a close examina-tion of some of the pictured vessels (for example, thestern of the yawl on the right in Fig. 3) confirmed thepresence of these timbers within boats with visibleconstruction details. A slight, rounded rubrail under-lies the uppermost strake of hull-planking on all ofthe 19th-century yawls pictured, as well as the Gal-lagher yawl. The caprails of all the vessels are flat andbroad, about the width of a man’s hand, as on theGallagher yawl, and they are single-banked rowing-boats. Where the number of thwarts may be deter-mined, four thwarts accompany an equal number ofrowlocks which resemble those of the Gallagher yawl.The oars themselves are also virtually identical,though the Gallagher oars are somewhat shorter. Inone aspect of its construction, the Gallagher yawlmay diverge from the boats photographed during thelate-19th century. The visible portions of the framesdo not show any evidence of overlapping paired fut-tocks, so it is uncertain whether 19th-century frameswere composites of staggered futtocks; however, con-sidering the scarcity of timber on the island, it isimprobable that the 19th-century frames were con-structed of single timbers.

Achill’s shifting maritime landscapeThroughout the 19th century, yawls similar to the Gal-lagher boat were gaining popularity as a series ofBritish legal and economic restrictions were beingimplemented on Achill. These regulations were enactedwith the intention of replacing local vernacular water-craft with vessels that conformed more closely toBritish aesthetic and logistic sensibilities. The indig-enous curragh was under particular scrutiny, and wasfrequently the subject of the disapproval of Britishregulators in printed reports on the region. In additionto lacking decks, which British observers considereda necessity, they were described as ‘particularlywretched; not one boat properly rigged’, and ‘so clum-sily constructed, they would make a New Zealandersmile’, with oars ‘of the coarsest workmanship’ (Fish-eries Inquiry, 1836: 77, 82). The process of discouragingthese and other native boats, and replacing them with‘improved’ British vessels, or local planked woodenboats like the Achill yawl which were less foreign toBritish experience (see CDB Report, 1911: 27–8 forBritish programmes to introduce larger decked craft ofBritish design), played out concurrently with an eco-nomic shift from traditional kin-ordered maritimesubsistence activities to a commercial fishing industrybased on wage labour on Achill (Meide and Sikes,forthcoming).

This process of standardizing Irish vernacular boatsaccording to British values was initiated with the Fish-eries Inquiry (1836), which scrutinized Achill’s fishingpractices in order to inform a series of new maritimeregulations. By the time of the Famine a decade later,British coastguards had begun forcibly confiscatingAchill’s vernacular curraghs for non-compliance withnew boat-registration regulations, actions documentedin reports in the Achill Missionary Herald. On 13 June1847 the Herald attested that 13 boats were taken at theheight of potato-crop failures, in a year still referred toas ‘Black ‘47’ (see Kinealy, 1997: 92–117), when theneed for fish to supplement farm crops and dairy prod-ucts would have been most pressing. The Herald notedthat the consequence of this policy and its enforcementwas that 26 families were suddenly left without themeans to obtain the fish which ‘contributed largely’ totheir sustenance during a time of need (Achill Mission-ary Herald, 1847: 68).

Concurrently, treatises such as Wallop Brabazon’sThe Deep Sea and Coast Fisheries of Ireland, withSuggestions for the Working of a Fishing Company(1848) began to appear. This was a detailed instruc-tional manual intended for British entrepreneursseeking profit from fishing enterprises in the west ofIreland, which advocated radical changes to the typesof watercraft used. Brabazon recommended the useof 100- or 150-ton trawling schooners costing £500–1000, well outside the financial resources and priorexperience of local fishermen. Brabazon’s principleswere soon put into practice on Achill by Alexander



Hector, a Scottish entrepreneur who came to theisland in 1856 and established a salmon fishery(McDonald, 1997: 233). Hector benefited from thedesperation of local families whose boats had beenconfiscated by the authorities, and at the peak of hisindustry it was claimed that he employed as many asone to two people out of every household on Achill(McDonald, 1997: 237). Hector also provided thefishing-boats used by his employees (Committee ofthe Sea Coast Fisheries, 1867: 118). The boats heimported conformed to British notions of suitablecraft for large-scale commercial fishing. This pro-gression from traditional, kin-organized maritimesubsistence activities, using homemade traditionalwatercraft, to wage-based commercial fishing, usingcompany boats, represents a fundamental change inthe ways of life of island families (Meide and Sikes,forthcoming).

In 1891 the Congested Districts Board (CDB) wascreated by the British government, and charged withsystematically re-organizing the infrastructure of Ire-land’s poorest regions, including that of County Mayo(Micks, 1925). An explicit aim of these programmes wasto replace traditional curraghs and open woodenrowing-boats with much larger British decked sailingvessels. The favoured vessel-types included Scottish‘zulus’ and Manx ‘nobbies’, some 40 ft long (CDBReport, 1906: 2–3; 1911: 27–8; for descriptions of zulusand nobbies see Smyth, 1929; White, 1950; Gillmer,1994: 93, 96; McKee, 1997: 77; Breen and Forsythe,2004: 154; Scott, 2004: 69–70). In coastal areas, anothergoal of the CDB was to stimulate the fishing industry byinvesting money in piers and dredging harbours. Thelack of deep water and dockage did not hamper Achill’straditional vernacular boats, which could be pulledashore, but it did restrict the crews of British vessels inloading and unloading cargoes, because in the absenceof piers they required lighters (including Achill yawls).We propose that the CDB’s provision of piers, in con-junction with a transition from traditional Irish boats tothe vessels recommended by the British, would havereduced the dependency of British and other commer-cial vessels on local Irish-speaking tenants by eliminat-ing the need for locally-operated lighters. It also wouldhave forced Achill fishermen using the prescribed largervessels which necessitated piers to follow regular routeswith fixed, public points of entry and exit to and fromthe sea, which could be easily monitored (Meide andSikes, forthcoming).

The CDB occasionally subsidized the constructionof smaller, open boats in areas without fully-developedharbour facilities. This included attempts to encouragethe acceptance of non-Achill yawl-types associatedwith the north-east of Ireland. In 1894 the CDB sup-plied clinker-built Greencastle yawls to fishermen onBlacksod Bay, north of Achill, to be used for fishing inlieu of indigenous designs. Local communities were soreluctant to accept the changes imposed by the CDBthat boatbuilders refused to build replacements for

such obviously foreign vessels as clinker-built yawls,and that type of boat quickly disappeared, while carvelversions such as the Achill yawl remained. The CDBconsidered this attempt to introduce ‘better boats andmodern methods of fishing’ to County Mayo a failure,in large part due to the ‘slackness’ of the fishermen(Micks, 1925: 39–40). Similar CDB attempts to intro-duce the Greencastle yawl to Broadhaven Bay in northMayo, and to the Aran Islands to the south in neigh-bouring Galway, between 1899 and 1907 also ended infailure (McCaughan, 1988b: 40; Kilbane, 2001: 41).

This resistance by local boatwrights is all the moremeaningful because Greencastle yawls or drontheimboats had been readily accepted in the northern coun-ties of Londonderry, Antrim and Down (McCaughan,1988b: 38–9; McCaughan, 1991: 136), where, unlike onAchill or elsewhere in the west of Ireland, Protestantfamilies of British descent were the majority in areassettled as part of the 17th-century Ulster plantations.Carvel versus clinker construction therefore mayhave been associated with linguistic and religious dif-ferences. In fact, the Fisheries Inquiry reveals that in1836 carvel boats were found in every region ofIreland except along the north-east coasts of what istoday Northern Ireland (McCaughan, 1978: 9–11;McCaughan, 1991: 133; McCaughan, 2008: 6). Thesame report shows that clinker vessels were all butabsent on the west coast of Ireland including CountyMayo, where McCaughan (1991: 133–4) has tenta-tively suggested that carvel construction may representan independent folk tradition, unlike the many variedand innovative clinker vessel-types found on the less-remote eastern coast in the 19th century. CountyDonegal, under economic pressure to adopt lighter,more weatherly boats for larger cargoes in the 1880sand ’90s, followed its neighbouring counties to the east(with whom it shared significant Protestant popula-tions) in using clinker yawls with the encouragement ofthe CDB (McCaughan, 1991: 136), but Achill islanderscontinued to fish and carry turf from smaller, heaviercarvel yawls. Clinker-built yawls today are symbols ofhistory and identity in the these northern counties asAchill yawls are on Achill; and while residents of Achillare currently planning the construction of a museum tocelebrate Achill yawls, Greencastle yawls have beencommemorated by institutions such as the Ulster Folkand Transport Museum, the National Fishery Train-ing Centre, and a public mural commissioned by theGreencastle Development Committee.

One unexpected outcome of British 19th-centurymaritime legislative attempts to standardize andhomogenize Ireland’s watercraft, therefore, seems tohave been a renewed pride in vernacular boats whosevisible features closely associated them with theremembered histories and identities of particular localcommunities. Despite the efforts of the CDB to eradi-cate native traditional watercraft, curragh use per-sisted, particularly on the western half of Achill. Thecarvel yawls prevalent on the eastern half of Achill



conformed more closely to British ideals of boatconstruction than did curraghs. Aesthetically, theseplanked boats may have appealed to a British politesense of order in that they had frames of timber,roughly regularly spaced (for discussions of British andBritish colonial preferences for regular spacing ofrepeated elements in architectural and landscapingdesign following the transition from a medieval to aGeorgian worldview, see Glassie, 1975; Deetz, 1977;Leone, 1988; Johnson, 1996; Green, 2003; Tarlow,2007). Additionally, yawls had inherited, in commonwith British boats, familiar construction elements ofScandinavian and Roman origins (see McCaughan,1978; McCaughan, 1983; McCaughan, 1991; Greenhilland Morrison, 1995: 216–24; McGrail, 2001: 207–21;McCaughan, 2008; Madill, 2008). However, in spiteof British attempts to impose the use of newly-constructed piers where the comings and goings oflocal boats could be easily regulated, yawls retained theability to pull ashore unmonitored on shallow, rockybanks, regardless of the tide, thus allowing Irish fami-lies the means to subvert attempts to alter their accessroutes to the sea. The late-19th-century increase in thepopularity of Achill yawls may therefore be interpretedas a limited compromise between curraghs, which wereunsuitable in the eyes of British officials, and largerdecked vessels, which were foreign in appearance andoverly extravagant by Irish standards.

Throughout the CDB’s reorganization of Achill’smaritime cultural landscape, islanders and administra-tive officials appear to have prioritized which boattraits were negligible and which were essential accord-ing to socially-constructed values. For Achill islanders,clinker planking, so readily evident on the outer hull ofan approaching boat, may have been simply unaccept-able in that it visibly represented an outsider’s identity.In addition, Irish resistance to the proposed replace-ment of their local vernacular boats attests to thetraits they valued in their vessels—small enough to bemanaged with a few crew seated in intimate proximity,low enough to the waterline to allow ready access tothe sea, and shallow-draughted enough to allowislanders ample choice in where to enter and exit thewater. For British officials, construction materials andmethods seem to have played a much larger role indefining the vessels they considered appropriate fortheir planned replacement of local craft. They recom-mended decked vessels built of regularly-spacedtimbers and wooden hull-planking, characteristics thathad served to differentiate British vessels from theiraboriginal counterparts (such as bark and dugoutcanoes, and skin boats) in colonized regions of Africaand North America (see McKusick, 1960; Adney andChapelle, 1964; Smith, 1970), as well as in Ireland,where, notably, British writers occasionally referred tocurraghs as ‘canoes’, a term borrowed from Arawak asa result of Caribbean colonial encounters (see Jagoe,quoted in Fisheries Inquiry 1836: 80, 82; Meide andSikes, forthcoming).

The modern Achill yawlBy the advent of World War II, Achill yawls whichhad faced UK regulation prior to Irish independencewere being replaced by motorized fishing vessels andautomobiles on improved roads. Seasonal yawl-racesceased around this time, and working yawls becamescarce, many having been sold or left to decay. Thesurvival of the Achill yawl into the second half of the20th century seemed uncertain, but after their neardisappearance, Achill yawls have enjoyed a resur-gence in recent decades, revived as colourfully-painted recreational sailing boats (Ní Ghallchoir,1997: 44–5; Kilbane, 2001: 47–9; Cunnane et al.,2008: 149).

The resurrection of the Achill yawl began with the1964 revival of traditional yawl-racing, largely creditedto the efforts of Joe Sweeny, a prominent merchant atAchill Sound. At the time of the first event, held on thecustomary date of 15 August, there were only threetraditional double-ended yawls (including, presum-ably, the Gallagher yawl) and one transom-sternedvariant (named Cutty and owned by the Pattens ofSaula) available to participate. By the 1970s, numbershad increased and races were sponsored by localfamilies and pubs. In 1994 the Cumann Bádóirí Acla, asociety to promote yawl sailing and racing, wasfounded. Within a few years the Cumann succeeded indeveloping the sport as an integral part of the island’sheritage tourism. By 1997 the busy racing calendarextended from late June to 1 September and includedthe popular ten-day Cruinní Bádóirí Acla (Achill YawlRacing Festival) each August. The newly establishedfestival, ‘part of an ongoing campaign to foster andpromote traditional yawl sailing through the mediumof our native tongue’, attracted prominent nationalsponsors, including Guinness and Údarás naGaeltachta, a governmental agency charged with fos-tering cultural and economic development in nomi-nally Irish-speaking regions (Ní Ghallchoir, 1997: 45).Thirteen wooden yawls raced that year, which grew to17 active participants by the turn of the millennium(Kilbane, 2001: 48), and to at least 22 towards the closeof its first decade (Cunnane et al., 2008: 149). Unlikethe races of the 19th and early-20th centuries, however,rowing competitions are no longer featured, replacedentirely by sailing regattas.

Historically, working Achill yawls were generallyun-named, and existing yawls built in the traditionalstyle such as the Gallagher and Corrigan yawls remainso. By contrast, owners of modern racing yawls haveadopted the international convention of paintingnames for their boats above the waterline, though mostadvertise the boats’ traditional Irish ancestry by usingGaelic names, such as An Lon Dubh (The Black Bird),An Spairt (The Splash), and An Broc (The Badger).Other changes are also increasingly apparent, mostnotably the form of the yawl itself. Yawls with flattransoms, unlike their double-ended predecessors,



have become more and more common. This trendseems to have begun as early as the 1920s with theconstruction of the aforementioned Cutty, and becamemore prevalent with the advent of outboard motors,which could be fitted to a transom stern but not atraditional sharp-ended stern. In the 1920s and ’30s,separate races were held for double-ended and flat-transomed yawls (Kilbane, 2001: 53). This distinctionwas not continued with the revival of yawl-racing inthe 1960s. The result of competitive races emphasizingspeed under sail was a rapidly-evolving yawl which bythe 1980s had grown more and more distinct from itsworking-boat roots.

While they are remembered nostalgically as integralto Achill’s traditional lifeways, the brightly-colouredmodern yawls bear little resemblance to their 19th-century working counterparts (Fig. 10). Built for speedunder sail above all else, they employ taller masts (upto 25 ft or c.7.6 m) and larger sails of modern terylene.These racing boats have a deeper keel than their pre-decessors (6–16 inches, or c.15–40 cm moulded depth)to prevent leeway, and are far heavier in order tosustain their forward momentum. Keels are often fash-ioned of or encased with iron to increase weight, andhulls are considerably longer, with some older boatshaving been increased in length up to 27 ft (c.8.2 m)(Kilbane, 2001: 48). The double-ended hull has com-pletely given way to the square transom, which toaccommodate an outboard motor is considerablystraighter than the raked sterns of the earlier-20th-century transom-ended yawls such as the Cutty(Kilbane, 2001: 42).

The result is a considerably faster sailing vesselwhich responds more rapidly to the helm and requiresless room and time to turn about at a fixed point in arace (Kilbane, 2001: 49, 51). The construction processfor these vessels is also faster and requires less skill. The

most obvious drawback of these changes is thatmodern Achill yawls cannot be effectively manoeuvredby oar power, and few if any are equipped withrowlocks anymore. In addition, they cannot be landedon an exposed shore because following seas can moreeasily swamp or capsize a transom-sterned vessel, espe-cially one without the stabilizing effect of oars, and theheavier hulls cannot be hauled out of the surf (Kilbane,2001: 32). Thus modern Achill yawls can no longerperform most of their traditional working tasks, butthey can and do continue to connect the community asa vessel-type recognized as local to the area.

The new design represents such a distinct departurefrom the traditional design of Achill yawls that someresidents on the island are highly resistant to labellingthe boats as yawls at all (Kilbane, 2001: 52; pers.comm. Jim Corrigan, 2004). As a nod to these tradi-tionalists, the organizers of yawl regattas now reserve aspecial racing category for traditionally-constructeddouble-ended yawls, though by 1999 only four double-enders remained in action, and most of these had beensignificantly modified to achieve better sailing abilities.Despite the protests of those who lament the loss of thetraditional form, the name ‘Achill yawl’ continues tobe the sole name applied to the modern racing boatsand is popularly accepted without reservation.

The Corrigan yawlFigures 11–12 (see also Kilbane, 2001: 31) depict anAchill yawl built in the late 1960s or ’70s by the latePatrick ‘Sonny’ McGinty of Saula and Shraheens, andcurrently owned by Jim Corrigan, a descendant of anAchill Beg family now living in Achill Sound village.This yawl was probably the subject of a story relatedby McGinty’s nephew, Martin McGinty, describinghow as a young lad he would accompany his father topick up his uncle’s yawl in Shraheens, and together sailit to compete in the races on Clare Island, stayingovernight and celebrating at Johnny Patten’s pub inCloghmore on each leg of the voyage (Ní Ghallchoir,1997: 44). The Corrigan yawl exhibits traits of bothearly and modern Achill yawls, and was based on thedesign of an Achill Beg yawl which participated inthe traditional races in the 1920s-’30s and was aban-doned in the 1960s. McGinty traced the frames ofthis derelict, believed to have been built in the 1920s, touse as templates for his modern yawl’s construction(pers. comm. Jim Corrigan, 2004; pers. comm. MartinMcGinty, 2005). However, although its frame-curvature, body-shape, and double-ended constructionare reminiscent of older yawls on the island, the Cor-rigan yawl has been altered for 20th- and 21st-centurypastimes. Some time after acquiring the vessel, JimCorrigan modified the boat to make it more competi-tive in races against non-traditional, transom-sternedAchill yawls. Corrigan cut the boat in half laterally atits centre in order to add a section, lengthening it bythree feet so that it now measures 26 ft (7.92 m)

Figure 10. Modern transom-sterned Achill yawls adaptedfor pleasure races, with prominent Irish vessel-names. (C.Meide)



overall. The beam of the boat remained unchanged.The shape and weight of the drag keel was also aug-mented by the addition of a deep, heavy iron shoe,which further increased its speed (Meide, 2006: 115).

In July 2005, Chuck Meide recorded the lines andnoted basic construction features of the Corrigan yawl,with the assistance of a small crew of students from theAchill Archaeology Centre’s Field School. Time con-straints and limited access to the boat did not permitthe complete scantling documentation. Because of itsextreme weight and its location on a sloped boat-ramp,the yawl could not be levelled at the time of fieldwork,and so measurements were mathematically adjusted onthe drafting table to compensate for the boat’s posi-tion. For this reason, the Corrigan lines may be slightlyless accurate than those of the Gallagher yawl. Fifteenstation lines along the port side were recorded at 50-cmintervals along a baseline running along the keel frombow to stern (some stations have been eliminated inFig. 12 for clarity).

The Corrigan yawl’s current length between perpen-diculars is 24 ft 113/4 in (7.614 m). This implies an origi-nal length of c.22 ft (6.7 m) with the original keel at anestimated 181/2 ft (5.64 m) long. The boat has a beam of61/2 ft (1.98 m), a depth of hold of 31/2 ft (1.067 m), anda draft below the load waterline of 2 ft 5 in (0.737 m).Though beamier than the Gallagher yawl, the Corri-gan yawl has a sharper entrance and finer run, present-ing less resistance to the water. Furthermore, while the

Gallagher boat’s gunwale is lower at the bow than thestern, the Corrigan yawl exhibits the opposite pattern.These differences at the boat’s ends, which presumablyretained most of their original characteristics throughthe yawl’s modifications for racing, suggest that thisvessel was probably always better suited for tests ofspeed than the Gallagher yawl.

Twenty-four full frames were observed and num-bered starting at the bow. As on the Gallagher yawl,they are composed of a floor and two futtocks, over-lapping at the joints. The floors are positioned aft ofthe first futtocks. Additionally, three pairs of half-frames are located between frames 19 and 20, 20 and21, and 21 and 22 at the stern. The yawl is fastened withmodern screws, nails, and bolts. Eight strakes of hull-planking, with butt-joined planks, are attached to theouter surface of the frames with iron or steel nails, inaddition to a slender wale below the uppermost strake.That strake is not a single plank, but divided into threesections, the midships section comprising two nar-rower planks one above the other. This may reflect thelengthening of the boat by Corrigan.

There is a small thwart in the stern, and an addi-tional three thwarts further forward. As with the Gal-lagher yawl, there is enough space between the secondand third thwarts where a removable thwart asdescribed by O’Malley in 1941 could once have beenpositioned over the supporting stringer. The thwartsare secured, as on the Gallagher yawl, with stringers

Figure 11. Jim Corrigan’s yawl in use prior to its modification. (courtesy of Jim Corrigan)



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)



above and below, but the Corrigan yawl’s thwarts arealso held in place laterally by pairs of lodging knees.The mast-step has been modified with a modern fittingof steel or aluminium covering its upper surface.Unlike the Gallagher yawl, it is flanked by two pairs ofstringers, rather than a single pair. There is no evidenceof a spit or sole at the stern, though a section of floordecking appears to constitute a larger version of thistraditional feature at the bow.

ConclusionsWhile 20th- and 21st-century racing vessels such as theCorrigan yawl exhibit hull-types and construction-methods which diverge sharply from the 19th-centuryworking yawls which hauled cargoes of turf andgreeted incoming vessels as lighters and pilots, theyshould not necessarily be viewed as entirely lackingin continuity. Achill boatwrights have a long traditionof creative innovation, and of adapting existing vessel-forms to suit current needs. Indeed, the ‘Achill yawl’was initially a Norwegian boat-type, modified tosatisfy the needs of Achill pilots and fishermen, and itlater gained popularity in part due to British regulationof Ireland’s maritime industries. As vernacular boatsclosely connected to the island’s landscape, thesevessels have continued to be described solely by theterm ‘Achill yawl’ by their local community, perhaps inpart because their symbolic political role has changedlittle.

Political and economic interactions on Achill overthe course of the 19th and early-20th centuries involved

a series of negotiations between British officials andlocal Irish families, which were enacted through ver-nacular boats and their movements within a contestedlandscape. Achill’s vernacular watercraft, includingyawls, have a history of use which includes active resis-tance to changes attempted or imposed upon the mari-time landscape by newcomers. As pilots, lighters, andsubsistence fishing craft, yawls were ultimately unableto compete as working vessels alongside 20th-centurymotorized craft, but sailing craft described as ‘Achillyawls’ persist within Achill’s maritime cultural land-scape out of a collective sense of nostalgia, pride in thetraditions of local craftsmanship, and group identitybased in part upon a historical understanding of pastpolitical and social events on the island. Unlike build-ings or other fixed landmarks that define a landscape,these boats are mobile, enabling and constraining peo-ple’s movements throughout their community as wellas shaping their maritime encounters with outsiders.Yet in contrast to larger commercial vessels whichmay travel over vast regions of the globe, vernacularboats are geographically restricted in their movements,and are therefore more closely associated with localvalues and traditions. Accordingly, the proliferation ofAchill yawls despite the introduction of new foreignvessels and a changing maritime economy may beinterpreted as an expression of Irish resistance tochange. Whether traditionally constructed or adaptedto pleasure racing, these boats today exist as a symbolof an Irish-speaking island identity and of oppositionto historical attempts to force Achill residents toconform to British cultural standards.

AcknowledgementsMany thanks to the community of Achill: Patrick and Bridal Barrett, Dennis Gallagher, Alan and Michael Gielty, Derek andMary Houghton, Gerard Lavelle, Tony and Sheila McNamara, Etain and Michael O’Conor, John O’Malley, John O’Shea, andJim and Brigit Corrigan. Thanks for financial or logistic support to: Achill Archaeological Field School, the College of Williamand Mary, the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program, Irish Heritage Council, and the Institute for Maritime History.Finally, we are indebted to friends, mentors, and colleagues: John Bennett, Mara Bernstein, Spencer Bollacker, Karl Brady,Nick Brannon, Colin Breen, Marley Brown, Brendan Burke, Chris Duke, Shannon Dunn, Wes Forsythe, Martin Gallivan, AnjaGoethals, Amanda Hoiness, Connie Kelleher, Erick Laurila, Holger Lönze, Owen Lucas, Theresa McDonald, ThomasMcErlean, Amy Gilboy Meide, Jeff Miller, Fionnbarr Moore, Andrew Nelson, Liz O’Brian, Jenn Richards, Jackie Rumley,Maura Ryan, John Shanley, Peter and Helen Shanley, Andrew Sikes, Ingelise Stuijts, Darina Tully, Brian Williams, andparticularly Audrey Horning.

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