A rowing club, supported by Limerick and Clare Education and Training Board, in a beautiful small West Clare village has been keeping tradition alive and strengthening local community spirit with a weekly boat-building class. All their hard work was realised on Saturday the 12th of October as the Loop Head Rowing Club in Carrigaholt launched their “Five Pilots” St Ayles skiff at Carrigaholt Slipway.
Speaking about the achievement, Breda O’Driscoll who is responsible for Community Education Delivery for the ETB in County Clare said: “This boat building project represents all that is brilliant about Community Education; real people in a West Clare community working together to develop the capacity of limited local resources in rural areas such as the sea. We are very proud to have been part of this process.”
Loop Head Rowing Club was founded in 2023 by Seamus Graham, Jill Leonard and Marcus McMahon in Carrigaholt, a village on the south-facing shore of the Outer Shannon Estuary. The goal was to use local community resources like the sea to revive the long-standing tradition of rowing in West Clare by crafting the small boat, known as a skiff, from scratch, creating opportunity for connections within a rurally-isolated community.
Photo courtesy of Loop Head Rowing Club
The task was carried out by a build crew made up of 16 dedicated local members, many of whom had no prior boat-building experience. Loop Head Rowing Club hosted the class every Saturday under the guidance of local shipwright Stephen Morris. He also oversaw the building of the St Ayles skiff Éalú in Kilrush, which featured recently in the ‘Morbihan Festival’ in South Brittany, France, and in the ‘Sea to the City’ fleet row in Cork Harbour.
The project provided a great opportunity for the learners to engage in a local vocational education and training programme and create connections within their community.
Speaking about the project before the launch, Stephen Morris said: “When the building part of this project is over, you have a boat that’s really going to be part of the Carrigaholt community. It will be available for everybody to row and everybody to enjoy and hopefully it will be around for years and years to come”
The design of the St Ayles skiff is inspired by the traditional Fair Isle skiffs, small and relatively lightweight fishing vessels suitable for use in rough sea conditions. The name is a reference to the medieval St Ayles chapel in the seaside town of Anstruther, Scotland. St Ayles skiffs are built using high-quality marine plywood, are 6.5m long with a beam of 1.7m, and usually weigh around 160kg.
Photo courtesy of Loop Head Rowing Club
The build was funded by Limerick and Clare ETB, through its Community Education initiative, and REACH Funding 2024. The venue and overheads for the boat build were provided free of charge by co-founder Marcus McMahon and his wife Fathom, another example of how the project truly brought the community together.
Limerick and Clare ETB Director of FET, Paul Patton, wished the team at Loop Head Rowing Club the best on Saturday morning as the final preparations were being made: “I’m delighted to hear that the ‘Five Pilots’ St. Ayles Skiff will be launched at Carrigaholt Pier, County Clare this Saturday. This boat-building project was supported by Limerick and Clare ETB and supported through extensive community engagement. It is fantastic to see the community in Carrigaholt working together to revive the long-standing tradition of rowing in West Clare.”
Check out this video, created by Adrian O’ Connor, on the building of the ‘Five Pilots’ St. Ayles Skilff in Carrigaholt.
For more information on Loop Head Rowing Club visit www.loopheadrowing.com
Story by Saul Mezzapelle, Junior, Limerick & Clare ETB Digital Content Specialist and third year Journalism and Digital Communications student at University of Limerick.
Share this on...