The Lough Corrib Boatmen Lough Corrib is the second largest sheet of inland freshwater in Ireland. Because of the Bann Flakes (small stone tools) which were found in 1975 and again in 1984 at River Island, where the Owenriff River flows into Lough Corrib, Oughterard can claim a pedigree to be amongst a very small number of places in Ireland where the first settlers to this country came to live and build their homes, almost 7,000 years ago. I will now move forward over 7,000 years to Oughterard of the 1930’s and take a look at the Corrib Boatmen. They became celebrated in 1960 after the publication of T.C. Kingsmill Moore’s book ‘A Man May Fish’, which is still held in high renown across the world. Kingsmill Moore was a most distinguished judge of the Irish High Court and of the Supreme Court and he had played a part in Irish political life as a member of the Senate. When he came to Oughterard to fish Lough Corrib in 1926, Jamesie Donnellan and Jimmy McDonagh from Billamore would be his Boatmen for the next 10 years. In the early years, Jimmy was in charge of the rowing and Jamesie dispensed the technical information. After Jamesie had passed away, Jimmy combined both of these positions. Kingsmill Moore fished many of the lakes across Ireland, and it would be unusual for the Boatmen to get more than a couple of
John Oliver Molloy and his grandson Kai making memories on the Lough Corrib lines of reference. However, TC was so enamored at the skill and knowledge of Jamesie and Jimmy that he devoted two full chapters to them – Lough Corrib and Jamesie (Chapter 11) and the Wisdom of Jamesie (Chapter 12). It is a wonderful testament to two local Boatmen from Oughterard and we should be very proud of them. I will now ask the question – was there a continuity of tradition between the Mesolithic fishermen and The Corrib Boatmen? Did that original skill make its way down through all the millennia to the present day? Baurisheen is the most northerly of the Oughterard townlands and its eastern side is a window that overlooks Lough Corrib. Baurisheen became the epicenter of professional fishing in the area with the advent of the famed Corrib Bell Fishermen. The Corrib Bell fishermen used a smaller single boat called a punt or bricin, and was usually about 14 feet in length. This was essentially a single boat and a much smaller craft than the subsequent Lake Boat of 18 to 19 feet when the tourist economy came along. There hazel poles with thirty foot lines were trolled at the back of the boat, and a bell rang at the top of the hazel rod when a fish struck the line. The punt was
JAMESIE DONNELLAN, BILLAMORE
“All the corrib boatmen were good. They knew the lake as a landowner knows his own demesne. But Jamesie knew it as a blind man knows the house he lives in, with absolute certainty. Though he could not see the bottom he could sense it, and in a shallow a mile long could smell his way to the few square yards which constituted a pet spot.” 70 | THE IRISH SCENE
