Kilkenny boat building challenge is reviving traditional Mayo currach skills

ABOVE: at Comerford working on the currach during the winter. Click NEXT to see more photographs and scroll down to read more!

A home in the hills above Ballyragget is not the first place you would expect to find a boat being built - but all through last winter a shed in Toormore was ‘buzzing’ with activity as what must be the first ‘Kilkenny currach’ was built!

At a length of 17 metres, and crafted by many hands, there are big plans for the currach for the rest of this summer.
Not least of those plans is rowing down the Barrow and rowing out to Achill Island. But at the heart of the project is not just a community coming together to take on a new challenge, but a group of friends hoping to help those who need support in the wider community.

“This was our mad notion when we turned 50,” said Pat Comerford explaining why a group of land-locked friends started building a floating craft. “There are no currach builders in Kilkenny.”

It’s become tradition that for the ‘0’ birthdays the group take on a challenge, with the intention of doing something for charity.
Pat Comerford and his friend Pat celebrated that joint 50th birthday a few weeks ago, but they spent many months building up to what would be the crowning achievement of their birthday year.

Pat Sweeney is from Achill, while Pat Comerford works in ifac in Carlow. Neither of the men, nor any of their army of helpers and friends, has ever built a boat before.
Despite the ‘madness’ of the notion, they have built a boat and, last weekend, it took its first journey on water. And floated!

How hard can it be?
Winding the clock back eight or nine months, the men decided to build a boat based on the design of a Mayo currach - and row it the 33 miles from Maganey to St Mullins on the River Barrow. With Pat Sweeney being from Achill, which had inspired the choice of boat, they decided to add on a journey there.

“I said we’d have a crack at building it. How hard can it be?” Pat Comerford recalled, then added “we have no boat experience.” But, he said, they are both handy at timber work - for Pat Comerford a hobby, Pat Sweeney is a woodwork teacher - and their friend Paul Palmer is “gifted making things”.
Friends and in-laws lent a hand during that building process too.

As none of them had built a boat before it was a case of “ask the questions, Google, Youtube, a lot of intuition and common sense” Pat Comerford said, describing the approach. Click NEXT to read more...