Whats in the watery box? the strata florida iron age figurine

Tiffany Treadway

Department of Archaeology, Cardiff University, Wales

@nomadic_treads

Drawing by Tiffany Treadway

The Strata Florida figurine was first published anonymously in 1903. The figurine was discovered from the Tregaron Bog, Cors Caron in southwest Wales, but the exact find date is unknown. The piece was first held in curation by the Reverend David Lewis Davies. However, what happened to the figurine’s whereabouts after 1903 can only be speculated upon, until it re-emerged as part of the Carmarthen Museum’s collection and remained uncatalogued until 1970 (Van der Sanden and Turner 2004: 87). The object was originally believed to have been a North American import (Van der Sanden and Turner 2004: 89). It was not until the piece was reviewed by Bryony Coles (1990, 1993) that the figurine was thought to have been made local to Britain. Nigel Nayling obtained the radiocarbon date, dating the figurine to the Late British Iron Age from 43 BC to 67 AD (GrA-15317) (Van der Sanden and Turner: 89).

The figurine has been suggested by Coles (1993) and Van der Sanden and Turner (2004) to be the depiction of an adolescent female due to the partial perforation on the front of the piece (Figure 1; see also other examples). The figurine is significant as the statuette was whittled from boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) and according to Godwin (1975), box only grows in southern England, as well as ‘…north and north-eastern Spain, south and central France, the Balkans, the Caucasus and north-west Turkey’ (Van der Sanden and Turner 2004: 90). 

Therefore, the material or the object itself was an import to this region. Boxwood is a dense material and expected to sink when placed in standing water; however, because the figurine was discovered in obscure circumstances, it is unknown if the peat was cut to place the object into the bog or placed in an inundated location such as a bog pool. The material choice is also important because boxwood has strong associations in folklore with mourning and death. Likewise, boxwood is also known for its medicinal uses, and allegedly can alleviate symptoms of ‘… gout, urinary tract infections, intestinal worms, chronic skin problems, syphilis, haemorrhoids, epilepsy, headaches and piles, leprosy, rheumatism, HIV, fever and malaria’. Possibly the choice of material was relevant in terms of such perceived curative properties? This imported material obviously held a significant function and was perhaps purposely chosen for the creation of this figurine.  

Second is its isolation; no other deposits have been reported within proximity to the figurine. However, there are several terrestrial Bronze Age funerary sites and Iron Age hillforts surrounding the bog (Poucher 2009), which demarks the location’s importance within the local topography. According to Poucher (2009: 123), in a survey published by Dyfed, there are several Bronze Age deposits from the general region. One Bronze Age hoard reported from the Tregaron Bog in the 19^th century contained ‘…two flat bronze axes and a bronze socketed, double-looped spearhead.’ Therefore, it is possible that deposition in the Tregaron bog is part of the multiperiod deposition tradition.  

The third is its size; the figurine measured 13 cm in height (Van der Saden and Turner 2004: 83). Its small size is suggestive of its portable nature, unlike other contemporary statuettes with a similar motif but are too large to move easily or discretely, such as the Ballachulish figurine from Scotland (height measures to 139 cm). 

It is difficult to interpret the function of objects like this, especially as archaeologists are the outsiders to this prehistoric culture, and forever will remain so. Therefore, it could have served a religious or mnemonic function, maybe both. Or perhaps in an extension of theory, the figurine is the prehistoric equivalent to a porcelain doll – a high-status children’s toy. However, as boxwood has association with death (woodlandtrust.org.uk), perhaps the figurine is instead representative of a small child that has died and a figurine in their likeness was commissioned to be deposited in the bog. Nevertheless, parting with such a significant object would create a collective memory for all those involved and a particularly emotionally charged memory for the individual(s) who donated the piece.  

Sources 

Coles, B., 1990. Anthropomorphic wooden figures from Britain and Ireland. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Volume 56. London: Cambridge University Press, 315-333. 

Coles, B. 1993. Roos Carr and company. In Coles, J., Fenwick, V. and Hutchinson, G. (eds), A spirit of enquiry – essays for Ted Wright. Exeter: WARP, Nautical Archaeological Society and Maritime Museum, 17-22. 

Godwin, H. 1975. History of the British flora. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Poucher, P., 2009. ‘Wetland margins survey: Cors Fochno’, unpublished report, No. 2008/114. Llandeilo: Dyfed Archaeological Trust. 

Van der Sanden, W., and Turner, R., 2004. The Strata Florida Manikin: How Exotic Is It? Journal of Wetland Archaeology, 4:1. Abington: Taylor and Francis, 83-96. 

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/a-z-of-british-trees/box/#:~:text=It%20is%20native%20from%20southern,can%20grow%20in%20large%20numbers.

The heating and kneading

Brian Mac Domhnaill

Towards the end of last year Ben and I agreed that there were still a few loose ends regarding the various theories about the purpose or purposes of the original Pallasboy vessel. I had given up on the idea that our project could come to any decisive conclusion on the matter and that was fine by me given the fertile ground left for the imagination. As a ‘get-out’ explanation during our discussions I kept using the analogy of the kitchen sink and its many uses but perhaps a bath is closer in size and potential. In my lifetime I have used a bath to bathe, hand-wash clothes, cool beer and very recently as the temporary resting place of our shrouded deceased cat, before her ritual burial the following morning.

The issue with the Pallasboy vessel is that it is no ordinary sink or bath, now or in the Iron Age. It was and still is a finely crafted object made from a very rare tree and therefore it must have been a high status object. This in turn could have implications for its usage. If it was created to serve only one purpose it may have been forbidden to use it for any other. Alternatively it may have been used as often as possible in as many ways possible, elevating the status of each task by association with the precious object, a bit like getting out the fine china.

Our replica is a little narrow for comfortable bathing but the original would have been just right for a cowboy-style bath, so we set out in October 2019 to test its suitability to heat water using the hot rocks method. Our experiment highlighted a few issues. We could demonstrate without any great difficulty that it was possible to heat water in the vessel. We were able to get the water to a very hot bath temperature in about ten minutes but to go any hotter one had to remove rocks and keep feeding fresh rocks from the fire, which is a bit of a fishing exercise given that the water became murky very quickly. How could one keep the water clean if that was important? Perhaps one could keep clean stones elevated above the ash? or the vessel could be lined with textile to collect silt etc and a basket-type lining used to collect and remove the stones? The textile could be removed last letting the water through the weave but removing at least some of the dirt and stone fragments. These measures might seem elaborate but perhaps not for a royal bath.

Our host for the October heating was Mike Cleary who, amongst other things, does catering for events. In addition to providing the fire for our heating he kindly agreed to test the theory that the vessel was purpose-built for kneading bread. The profile of the vessel was fit for the task and the proportions accommodated the kneeling position quite well. It was however excessively long so perhaps it could be used by two people at once. I brought along some of the alder that Mark had split from our trunk in 2015. I had been holding on to it for some unknown creative output but I thought it fitting to use it to fuel the fire that would bake the bread made in the vessel. We like a bit of circularity.  Mike made a few flat breads that we ‘baked’ on a pre-heated stone. We both agreed it was a bit bland and that it needed something, maybe honey or a good Iron Age stew.

You will notice in the video that the vessel was leaking or crying at its handles. This was in part due to the repaired splits in the rim at either end but also radial splits around the heartwood, which itself remained quite soft and vulnerable. The next outing for the vessel was to be as a beer cooler at Ben & Sinead’s wedding so I made some speedy repairs with not-so-Iron Age woodfiller. It did the job. We then carried out a second heating/cleansing at my house to clean out the remaining flour residue. Post-wedding the vessel now sits in my garage waiting for its next event…any ideas?

The heating and kneading from Brian Mac Domhnaill on Vimeo.

The Second Sounding

Brian Mac Domhnaill

It was during crafting in 2015 that I first noticed the acoustic properties of our replica vessel. Later the same year this inspired our first sounding and what was to become a christening of sorts for our newly created object. I was not suggesting that the vessel was crafted to produce sound but if we noticed its potential to do so it follows that the same observation may have been made in the Iron Age. A second ‘sounding’ was arranged in September 2018 this time in the form of a duet. Letting my imagination run away with me I proposed the scenario that an Iron Age horn player had become frustrated with the imposed restrictions of playing at druid-led rituals and ceremonies and longed for more freedom of expression. Likewise a percussionist felt the acoustic properties of the Pallasboy vessel were underutilised. What these guys needed was an Iron Age freestyle jazz jam and this what we staged in the Granary Theatre, conveniently located next door to the UCC Archaeology Department where the vessel resided at the time. The dress code for the musicians was black. Billy Mag Fhloinn brought along his replica Iron Age horn and percussionist Solamh Kelly took on the task of ‘playing’ the vessel. My goal was to gather some sounds that were in some way derivative of the Iron Age due to the objects/instruments used but also contemporary, improvised and unique to our project.

Billy and Solamh spent most of the day experimenting, playing solo and in tandem whilst I took some footage and photographs. The priority was to record the sound so I enlisted the services of Cork-based Australian artist and composer Robert Curgenven. We were in an empty theatre, not in a recording studio, so we were relying on his expertise and equipment to compensate for the difficult acoustics. There were some initial issues with the sound of Solamh’s socks on the floor and the high notes of the horn were hard to cope with but after some careful repositioning of rugs and microphones we were back on track.

Solamh worked his way through various options we had for drumsticks including two that our friends at Meitheal Mara turned for us. These were made from batons I cut from a plank off our 2015 alder trunk (Incidentally the wedges you can see holding the vessel in place during the sounding are the very same ones used to spilt the plank from the trunk). Solamh and I coated the matchstick-like heads of our drumsticks in a variant of the mixture Billy uses as a glue to haft his Bronze Age replica tools. Our hope was that it would act like a shock absorber but in the end it was quite hard so we had to add leather. The size and weight of the sticks combined with the lack of a sufficient cushion made the strikes on the vessel very loud and harsh so we scaled down to two smaller sticks Billy had brought along. These worked far better giving a deeper, softer sound and a more suitable accompaniment for the horn.

Billy’s replica Iron Age horn is based on The Loughnashade Trumpet (c.100BC) which is like a giant hunting horn with didgeridoo-like possibilities. Thankfully Billy has had plenty of practice because playing the horn requires a particular set of skills including circular breathing. As audience members we were blown away by the staggering range of the instrument and the bestial noises it could produce. Billy also took along some other weird and wonderful instruments to demo for us.

The style of the jam varied but the duo regularly found a rhythm and a focus resulting in duets of about three to five minutes. The passages of play that I felt were most successful were those that had a prehistoric or tribal quality whilst also sounding surprising or alien, like we were listening in on a past normally out of ear’s reach. It is these passages that I will use for future Pallasboy video soundtracks. I have also featured a selection in a sample video (see below). There is talk of remixing some of the gathered sounds so more on that another time, but for now put on your best Iron Age polo neck and nod in an appreciative manner from a candle-lit table somewhere off camera:

The Second Sounding from Brian Mac Domhnaill on Vimeo.

From guerrilla deposition to lines of desire…

Dr. Benjamin Gearey

The wooden figurines carved by the participants in the Pallasboy Project’s workshop in 2015 had been sat around doing, well, nothing much. We’d discussed the best thing to do with them, and were drawn to the idea of releasing them into the wild; placing them somewhere that might feel like their natural habitat. Following some discussion as to the optimal location for such an undertaking, as well as the legality of leaving strange wooden carvings lying around the place, we settled on a location in West Cork. Last October (2019), around Halloween, we carried out our act of ‘guerrilla deposition’. Originally, we’d thought of placing them deep in the woods somewhere, perhaps close to a little used footpath, to surprise the occasional walker, but Brian suggested that a location closer to a larger track would be better. Following a short discussion, we settled on this and installed them amongst the trees, but in a spot where they would hopefully catch the eye of anyone half alert heading up the track.

The Pallasboy ‘waka’ Halloween Eve, October 2019

We had no idea how long they might survive on their own, I was convinced they would quickly fall victim to the weather or to passersby with no thought to their wooden beauty. So, it was with great joy to find they remain in position, until yesterday at least (16/02/2020). What’s more, a line of desire has been trampled through the briars, signalling a fall of foot to view them closer up. There’s no sign of their having been disturbed; a respect for their right to lurk, or maybe a small bit of superstition over what the desecration of this strange woodland gathering might bring?

World Wood Day 2019

THE STOCKMÜHLE RECONSTRUCTION – World Wood Day 2019

Mark Griffiths

Click on link above or on image below to view full pdf of article.

Published in the The Woodworker & Good Woodworking, September 2019, http://www.getwoodworking.com

A day of remembrance

Ciara Finan, Musician

Saturday July 6th was a day of remembrance of our ancestors and of the history of the Oughterard and Moycullen area, as well as a day of appreciation and wonder at the future that they behold. I felt that the music which would ring out over the launch of the 2,400 year old boat into Loch Coiribe needed to be relevant and expressive. Irish traditional music, on the fiddle which I play, was the obvious choice. The initial piece was an easy decision to make as it is aptly named ‘Launching the Boat’. The reel composed by great Donegal fiddler, Francie Byrne, lifted the atmosphere into immediate celebration as the replica floated along the water. To complete the set, I went into a second reel, ‘Lad O’Beirne’s’, a familiar tune for most trad session enthusiasts. As the rower powered through the water with surprising agility and control over the long boat, I launched into a set of reels I learned from the Dubliners, ‘Gerry Cronin’s Reel’ and ‘Denis Langton’s Reel’. Before the rain started on the gathered crowd, I had time to play a set of jigs, ‘The Sheep in the Boat’ and ‘The Rooms of Dooagh’, a jig from Mary McNamara and named after a cave system in the hills between Maghera and Tulla in Co. Clare. The first jig is an adaptation of a slow air by the name ‘Eanach Dhúin’, or ‘Annaghdown’ in English. The tune was composed by famous blind Irish poet, Antoine Ó Raifteiri. I picked this jig as it was in remembrance of the tragedy that occurred in 1828, when a boat of twenty people were making their way across the lake from Annaghdown to Galway for a mart. A sheep on the boat put its foot through the bottom board and ended up causing the boat to sink in the Loch Coiribe drowning its owners with it. Saturday was an opportunity to pay a small recognition to those people on such a remarkable day on the Loch Coiribe.

A Blood Sacrifice for the Iron Age Ancestors? Launching Lees Island 5 on Lough Corrib

Dr. Benjamin Gearey

I can’t remember which of us suggested that it was a good idea to launch Mark’s replica of the Lees Island 5 Iron Age boat on Lough Corrib in Co. Galway, on the bottom of which the original had been lying for nearly 2500 years. But what I do remember thinking is: ‘sure, great idea, no bother, we just need a trailer to get it up there, a willing driver and a place to launch it…’. If we’d known quite how drawn out and difficult the actions briefly outlined in the previous sentence would turn out to be, we may have been tempted to quite literally push the boat out a bit closer to Cork City.

In fact there were a few moments when Mark’s blood sacrifice seemed to have been insufficient to assuage the unquiet Iron Age ancestors who seemed to be determined to prevent our Lee’s Island 5 replica from taking to the water. As it was, I will gloss over the extended problems of lifting and moving two tons of oak via road to Lough Corrib, finding a suitable time and place to launch, advertising the event to ensure a people actually came out to witness the event, and actually persuading a trained kayaker (well, two of them in the end…) to do the all important first paddling of the vessel. The main reason that these problems ended up dispersing like an autumn mist over the Lough, was due to the remarkable efforts of Paul Naessens and his colleagues in Oughterard and Moycullen Heritage. Their enthusiasm and persistence in the face of recurring obstacles and difficulties was truly inspiring and genuinely touching, especially because other than a series of phone calls, none of us had ever met Paul or any of the groups. To add to the occasion, Paul had managed very late in the day, to find musician Ciara Finan to play at the launch, as Sarah Roche, who had been working on a composition to mark the event, had been unfortunately taken ill the week before.

And so it was, that we all found ourselves on the Knockferry pier, on a cloudy but generally dry Saturday afternoon. Every launch needs a VIP: in this case TD Sean Kyne had kindly agreed to do the honours. A few short speeches later we were watching a JCB hoisting the vessel up in the air and down into the water. There were some nerves, especially because Dr. Niall Gregory had speculated that the original vessel had never been intended to float: visions of Youtube immortality for all the wrong reasons sprung up as many of the crowd of 200 or so people, raised their camera phones to capture the moment the boat was released into the water. But float she did, perhaps not the most elegant or lithe vessel across the Lough, but a remarkably moving sight after so much effort (and some small blood loss..) by Mark and our new friends from Moycullen and Oughterard. Some things you know will stay long in the memory; for me this was one such time.

Construction of Lee’s Island 5 – A Dugout Boat sacrificed in the Late Bronze Age?

Niall Gregory, Gregory Archaeology

In February 2019, I took the short trip to Meitheal Mara boatyard in Cork to visit the latest Pallasboy Project. A couple of weeks previously I received an email from Mark Griffith and Ben Geary about this latest exciting endeavour. Mark was undertaking the significant task of remaking the Lee’s Island 5 dugout boat. The original discovered by Capt. Trevor Northage and surveyed by Karl Brady of the Underwater Archaeology Unit of the National Monuments Service, was found to be of late Bronze Age date. A remarkable aspect of this boat is how one the most significant axes ever discovered of the period was deliberately secured against the boat’s side and beneath one of the boat’s seats or thwarts. A notch had even been cut into it’s haft in order to firmly keep it in place wedged under the thwart.

Aside from genuine curiosity about the boat project and Mark’s work, the reason for the initial email and my subsequent visit, is that it was felt that the reconstruction had reached an impasse – was the boat (based upon Karl’s records) complete or should it receive more work? I was invited to view the work based upon both my knowledge of these boats as well as experience with crafting them. My visit to the boatyard coincided with me being on route to Bonane Heritage Park in Kerry to meet and discuss another forthcoming replica dugout boat project. Unfortunately at the time of my visit I did not have the opportunity to meet Mark, but Ben was in the yard waiting to greet me.

Without yet having had the advantage of access to the original boat’s records or previous discussion in any depth, Ben presented Karl’s drawings to me on his mobile phone. However, prior to this, he pulled back the tarpaulin to reveal Mark’s fantastic work. A number of details immediately struck me. The shape of the boat was very blocky or rectilinear in plan, longitudinal and cross-section; there was an inordinately excessive thickness to both ends; and the sides were three and a half to four times thicker than normal for dugout boats. All these considerations are contrary to the corpus of Irish dugout boats. With a little examination I could see that the base of the boat was extremely thick. My immediate conclusion was that this was an unfinished dugout boat. However, this conclusion did not rest easy with me as with dugout boats, the external hull is shaped and finished before the trunk is turned over to make way for the boat’s hollowing out process. Clearly with the squared or rectilinear hull shape, it defied the completed external shape of these boats. This further presented the conundrum of internally the curvilinear ends (on all three axis) appeared complete. The other unique aspect of this boat was that the two (oval in cross-section) thwarts (seat insets into the boat and transverse to the hull), were mounted through the sides of the boat, which presented an apparent potential point of water ingress. In all other circumstances with dugout boats, the thwarts are flat boards set onto internal shelf-like projections.

At this point – and not having met Mark or had the opportunity to discuss the project with him – I informed Ben that Mark appeared to have been working from two perspectives at the one time – that Mark had commenced fashioning the external hull shape up to a point and then stopped for the time being in order to commence the hollowing. I advised while suggesting referral to the original boat data, that both ends have more rounded profiles externally to emulate the interior and be of reduced thickness; that the cross-sectional profile have rounded edges rising from a flat base; that the floor thickness be reduced a little and the sides be internally reduced significantly. Ben presented the drawing of the original boat to me on a small phone screen from which it appeared that the thickness of the sides were obscured by a tumblehome – the top edge of the sides curving back in towards the interior, which suggested a smaller original tree trunk than originally desired.

On my return to the office I emailed Ben, Mark and Karl what I had discussed as well as my suggestions. The following day Karl responded and thankfully provided clarifications. It transpired that Mark’s work was indeed nearly complete and that the 7 to 8cm thick sides were an accurate portrayal as was the reminder of his work, except where Karl suggested the sides in location narrowed through wear and use of the boat. Karl also noted that reducing the floor thickness from it’s 20cm to that of 8cm would complete the boat.

Once I recollected my thoughts, my first reaction was that the original must be an unfinished boat, as there is sufficient evidence in the archaeological record to demonstrate that the unfinished dugout boats were sunk between periods of fashioning them in order to keep the oak wood soft and pliable. Perhaps the best known example of this is the Lurgan Boat on display in the National Museum of Ireland. However, the fact that the interior appeared to be finished, the thwarts were in situ and an axe was deliberately secured beneath one of them, more than aptly demonstrated that this was indeed a finished dugout boat.

I carefully considered the implications, in particular of how such a boat would perform in open water and with timber as dense as oak… The inordinately thick ends would invariably have caused the boat to pitch and yaw in any waves, regardless of the wave size. This would have significantly increased the potential for, or actual swamping of the boat. Having the boat’s sides as thick as the base almost completely negates the stability of these craft normally have with much thinner sides. The enhanced roll of the boat as a consequence would have caused the boat to capsize and sink. In other words, if the boat did not swamp and sink, it would invariably have capsized and sunk. It interesting to speculate that by having thwarts running through the sides of the boat, water may have leaked aboard by this means. However, I believe, the swamping or capsizing of the boat would have overtaken the slower rate of leaking.

As a consequence, the only satisfactory conclusion that I have arrived at is the original boat Lee Island 5 boat was deliberately designed to have a short lifespan and not for sustained use. The fact that the axe was deliberately and permanently secured beneath the thwart, or at least in a manner that the haft was made deliberately no longer useable, suggests ritualistic connotations. I can only surmise that this boat was designed and used for a one-off deliberate, watery sacrifice. While I wish Mark well with the completion of his project, I look forward with mixed feelings about the boat’s maiden voyage. As I have made a number of these boats, I fully appreciate the sheer effort in embarking on such an endeavour and of course wish the boat and its crew safe and happy passage. Yet, I can’t help also visualising a sinking outcome and safe rescue of the crew…

Lee’s Island Log Boat Final crafting, Cork 20.05.19 – 24.05.19

I’ve made a mistake. The hotel I’ve booked, in the St Lukes area of Cork, sits on a hill and offers wonderful views over the city and harbour. However, it means that I have a thirty-minute walk to Meitheal Mara, across the other side of the city. That’s not so bad, unless of course you are carrying two tool bags packed with as many axes as my Ryanair limit will allow, and an equally heavy backpack. By the time I reach the boat yard I feel that I’ve already done a day’s work.

I’m conscious, reading back through these blog posts, that I’m constantly bemoaning the strain this work puts on my body. Conceding that much of it can be put down to self-pity, I still feel an awareness of the effects of crafting, with these tools, on the maker is an important part of our research. While using a contemporary axe is hard physical work, the difference when carrying out the same task with one of our Iron Age replicas is marked. The design of the modern-day axe has evolved over thousands of years. The process of forging steel is now an exact balance of metals and heat. The timber for hafting handle is grown for this purpose alone. Its serpentine shape, so easy in the hand, made specifically to deliver accurate strikes without transferring too much force to the user. Whereas the expertly made replica tools we used were forged in a primitive hand-bellowed clay kiln. The heads we then hafted, with hide and black resin, onto thick stock shafts, more designed to hold the axe head’s socketed end than offer any comfort to the user.

A day spent using basic hand tools while contorting your body to position it for an optimum cutting angle, kneeling or laying on a stone floor or just spending hours repeating the same task that had blistered your hands the day before is an aspect of the creation of ancient artefacts that can be overlooked. The sheer physicality of the work opens conversations about the delegation of labour, how time was structured to complete projects on this scale and the importance of an object, such as this, over other necessary daily tasks. I would start the day with a session of yoga stretches in my hotel room. My first task when reaching the yard would be to tape my fingers, strap on a back brace, then don a range of protective clothing. At the end of the day, back at the hotel, I would gingerly ease myself into a scolding bath to ease the muscles before attempting a few more gentle yoga positions. Some nights I found myself too tired to go out and eat, instead falling asleep around six or seven. Reading through my notebook to write this blog I see clearly how as the week progressed my handwriting would become more skittish and illegible. Hands, cramped by work, were unable to carry out tasks requiring dexterity. Would these same aches and pains be recognised by the maker of the original Lee’s Island boat?

Since my last visit to Cork in October 2018, our replica had been visited by two respected experts in the study of these craft, Dr Niall Gregory and Karl Brady, whose Underwater Archaeology Unit carried out the survey on the original boat, buried in the silt of Lough Corrib for four and a half thousand years. Their input was of great help, and much appreciated. However, the guidance received did leave us with a dilemma. According to Karl by making a few adjustments we would have a vessel very close to the one he had seen at the bottom of the Loch; all be it reduced in length. Niall on the other hand was quick to observe that the design of this craft, with its heavy bow and stern, could hinder its lake-worthiness. He went as far as expressing the opinion that the Lee’s boat was in fact designed as a votive offering, crafted with the sole purpose of sinking (see Dr Niall Gregory’s guest blog post). Should we adjust our vessel to render it more likely to preform on water, or should we stick to recreating the specific craft observed by Karl in the Lough and risk seeing all our hard work slip below the waters on its maiden voyage?

After serious consideration the decision was made to stick with our original plan. As with all our projects to date, the object itself is of less significance than the experience of making it, and sharing that experience with others, whatever the outcome. We have left a Highlands goddess buried on a hillside above the village of Ballachulish. And our replica of the Red Man of Kilbeg broke its tethers in a storm and was washed out to sea. If our boat was destined to join all the other lost craft on the bed of Lough Corrib so be it. We would at least have some insight into its intended purpose.

Karl had suggested that we remove another 25% of material from the inside of both bow and stern. This would go some way to compensate for the loss of volume after reduced the boat in length. The floor also required thinning down to roughly 80mm. The underside of the craft, so far untouched, would need some attention. This would require flipping the boat over, a daunting task as we estimated it still weighed two and a half to three tons. With twelve boatbuilders looking on Seamus stood in silence formulating a plan. Each person was assigned a task, old car tyres were lined up on one side of the vessel, then using two long scaffold poles the boat was flipped onto its side. Tyres were moved, and the boat was flipped again this time onto the trolleys. As we all congratulated each other for making this very hazardous manoeuvre without injury to boat or human, Seamus just walked silently away, back into his workshop.

I needed to break the sharp angle between the sides and the bottom. Using my wide headed axe, I worked along each edge cutting deep forty-five-degree slices, then working back I cut away the timber between these slices. I found the task was very satisfying. Whether it was the wonderful sound of splitting timber, the light cooling rain that had started to fall on me or the knowledge that this was the last of the axe work. The boat was finished.

Repeating the Seamus plan, the craft was righted. My last job was to dig out the dead knot in the boats side and fill the black void with West System Six10 Epoxy resin. Waterproof and flexible, this versatile marine filler adhesive is perfect for this type of repair. I also filled the long split that ran along the right side of the bow.

It is when sweeping up the sawdust and wood chippings, spread across the yard, that I truly feel my work is complete. It offers a chance to reflect on the many days spent on this object we had made. The early days working in Bray, driving around the sleepy town in a beaten-up Triumph 2000, and starting work on the freshly felled oak. Through all the days spent here in the Meitheal Mara boat yard, bent over the same oak log, shaping it with axe, and adze, into a copy of a craft lost in a Lough way back in our distant past. In connecting with the early Irish culture responsible for building these vessels, I had also connected with the present-day Ireland. Through the friendships I have made, and the places I have visited, the incredible experience of working in this country will stay with me always.

Lee’s Island log boat carving, Meitheal Mara 22.10.18 to 26.10.18

Mark Griffiths

Nothing appears to have changed in the Meitheal Mara boat yard since I was last here five months ago. When away, I can close my eyes and find my way back here. The racks of sweet-smelling pine and long sticks of Willow. The workshop walls papered with intricate plans of traditional boats and well used tools. It’s easy to imagine standing in the yard, its floor splattered with bright paint and black pitch, listening to the banter and laughter mixed with the sounds of making.

I find our boat buried behind a stack of finished currachs. The summer has been hot; however, Brian has been diligently keeping the hessian sheets that shroud the wooden boat damp. I’m relieved so see that any new splits are small, and the large split that slashes across one side of the stern hasn’t increased. We have set the boat on three industrial trolley’s, which make it easier to manoeuvre around the yard.

The aim this week is to get the boat as close to complete as possible. Any additional work will be done before a planned floating in Galway. I start by removing more material from the boats floor. The drawings show that the original Lee’s boat had an external depth of 400mm, and internal depth of 300mm. This leaves me with another 50mm to remove from our replica. Starting from one end, I work down the boat with the large adze making slightly angled cuts roughly 10mm deep. Reaching the end I switch sides and repeat the process. The small adze is then used to clear away the chipped-up surface. This removes roughly 15mm from the floor of the boat and takes just over an hour and a half to complete. Therefore, removing just 50mm of material from the inside of the craft will take the best part of a day.

Both bow and stern have a distinctive wedge-shaped end, the top of which runs flat for approximately 300mm and then dips into the crafts interior with a gentle scooped curve. It is difficult to judge from the plans if we have the true angle of this detail. Seeking advice from Elli, one of Meitheal Mara’s skilled boat builders, confirms my view that too much weight in this area could drastically affect the displacement of the craft when in the water. More timber would have to be removed. The small adze was quite effective at this task when working at the bow end, which was the top of the Oak tree. It was quite a different story when shaping the stern, it being the root end. The structure of timber close to the trees root end has a greater proportion of dense heartwood. The grain pattern, particularly on oak, is unpredictable and wild, making it stubborn and hard to work. For this reason, I had to resort to using my angle grinder with its Tungsten tipped carving disk.

One lunchtime I break off and meet Brian and Ben at a buffet reception in a gallery at Brian’s workplace. Among the guests is Sorcha de Roiste, an artist and traditional musician. Inspired by our project, and the approach we have taken, she is considering composing a piece to be preformed when we finally launch our replica Lee’s Island boat. At every stage, the Pallasboy Project has been supported, and gifted, by many diverse artists, willing to collaborate and to explore the cultural significance of the artefacts we have chosen to replicate. We are excited to see how Sorcha interprets our work, and its connection to the makers of the original Lee’s Island boat.

Too quickly, the week comes to an end. The crafts interior has been hollowed out to match, as closely as possible, our interpretation of the survey drawings. The boats sides have been hewn with an adze, leaving tight, even toolmarks that ripple in the light like fish scales. All that is left to do is fit the two round oak crosspieces, or thwarts. As our boat has been shortened in length by 2.5 Meters I set the thwarts in from Bow and Stern at the same distance seen on the original, leaving the centre spacing reduced. Both crosspieces are set down 80mm from the gunwale, or boats top edge. Without an opportunity to examine the original, the method of fitting these shaped sections of oak must be guessed at. My solution is to gouge out a hole, slightly larger than the thwart, on one side of the hull. The rounded thwart is then pushed through until it touches the opposite side. After checking it is level, a pencil line is scribed around the end, and onto the hulls inside. This opposing hole is then gouged out, this time tight to the line. Using the butt of my axe, the thwart is driven home, wedging it tightly in its snug home. The protruding ends of the crosspieces are then cut back flush with the hull’s exterior.

What was once a large oak tree now resembles a vessel capable of navigating a waterway. More work will be needed on the boat’s underside, however what we have crafted is a fair interpretation of the archaeological record made during the underwater survey. I have one last task. Saying goodbye to the yard manager Seamus I gift him a carving knife I’ve had made by a craftsman in Poland. This is a token of my appreciation for the care given after I had my accident during my last visit. It is also important to me to pass on a treasured tool, from one maker to another, to mark the end of a shared project. In the past, tools were prized objects of high value, and they still hold a great significance to craftspeople today. Each time they are taken up memories are evoked of people, place and a working life.