Michael O’Brien and the coracle

MICHAEL O’BRIEN, an old man residing in one of the cluster of cottages’ which forms the remnants of the old village called Oldbridge, near Drogheda, has just discovered that he is the only man in Europe who can make a hide-covered coracle or curragh, and also that the River Boyne, beside which his family have lived for untold generations is the only river in Ireland on which this type of boat is still used.

This revelation was made to Mr. O Brion within the last few weeks when Dr. Mahr. of the National Museum, visited Oldbridge for the purpose of interviewing the person who had kept alive the vanishing art of coracle making, as well as with the intention of having a specimen built for the museum.

This was ultimately done by Mr. O’Brien who was assisted by his son and another young man named Philip McCormack, both of whom take a live interest in the old man’s skill, which they are also anxious to acquire.

‘When I interviewed him Mr. O’Brien said he had learned how to make a coracle from his father who had been taught by his grandfather many years ago. ‘It was made,” he said, “simply with hazel rods, willows, and cow-hide, and when finished it was a roundshaped curragh, measuring five feet eight inches in length, and four feet two inches at the widest part.”

Curraghs had alwavs been used for salmon fishing on the Boyne in his recollection, but they have grown scarcer and scarcer each year, and the fishermen around Oldbridge are the only people now using them on the river, and in fact the only people in Europe to use this peculiar form of fishing craft.

He remembered being told by his grandfather that coracles were used on the Boyne since tho time when the Cistercian Monks were in possession of Mellifont Abbey, and he also knew that the cowhide covered curragh had become extinct along the West Coast eighty years .ago.