Tag: Connemara

Queen of the Ladybirds

August 22, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Banrión na Bóinne, Galway Hooker on the hard for restoration in Connemara

While it’s all quiet on the Cambria front, I thought I’d sneak in another Galway Hooker photo, this one up on the hard getting some TLC from the local shipwrights up an inlet in Connemara. The name on her is Banrión na Bóinne which according to our trusty dictionary, translates as Queen of the Ladybirds. This photo shows very well the deep bellied hull and keel and the characteristic “tumble-home” of the hull; where the width of the hull at the rails is much less than the width lower down. Flat bottomed barge, she is not! Incidentally there is a very good book on the subject of these craft should you be interested, “The Galway Hookers” by Richard J Scott (pub Ward River Press, 1983/1985, ISBN 0-907085-58-X currently out of print but freely available on the well know book dealer internet sites).

Incidentally, the Galway Hooker Association have a website on http://www.galwayhookerassociation.ie/default.asp?contentID=1

High and Dry

August 18, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Galway Hooker high and dry in Kinvarra at low tide, pic by Matt Care

Ah well, the plan to watch Hooker racing didn’t quite work out. Seeing the harbour at Kinvarra on Thursday at mid tide we didn’t appreciate how it was at low tide – just acres of rock and bladder-wrack. When we caught up with a race programme and everything seemed to start at 4pm we thought “Ah well, there will still be boats coming and going, jilling about in the bay to photograph”. Not a bit of it. Never mind, we saw lots and took plenty of pics, then drove home the scenic route back through Connemara. A lovely day. We now have the perfect excuse to return tomorrow and see if we can get a bit more lucky.

Kinvarra

August 16, 2012 / / 1 Comment

Galway Hooker in Kinvarra Harbour, Aug 2012, Photo by Matt Care

There’s no point being a blogger on a trad sailing work-boats website and living within an hour and a half of the centre of Galway Hooker restoration, Kinvarra, just south of Galway, if you can’t indulge your own passions for things non-barge occasionally. Today we went all touristy and headed off first for the ‘wrong’ Kinvarra (there are several, and this one was in Connemara so it seemed like a good bet. We enjoyed superb West of Ireland mountain + lake scenery for an hour or so, but that Kinvarra proved to be 3 houses and a farm. No beach, no harbour. We headed in along the north side of Galway Bay and on through the city of Galway, then South to the next Kinvarra on the list, the one down in Cliffs of Moher / The Burren country. Here not only did the town signs have hooker logos on them, but as soon as we could see harbour we also spotted the lovely black hull of the big hooker Cliona na Toinne moored alongside (plus a smaller one, possibly of the type they call “púcán”)

Trad Boat Festival Poster, Pic by Matt Care

Naturally we had to stop and take so many photo’s I filled my memory card. Not only that, we discovered notices around the town saying that the Traditional Sailing Boats Festival is Friday (tomorrow!) Saturday and Sunday of this weekend. Will we be heading back, do you think?