Cowboys o' Galway: Schooner Days MLXV (1065)

by C. H. J. Snider

I've tossed my sou'wester over the t'gallant yard and proclaimed a private holiday. If you care to follow it or me you're kindly welcome.

GORTNAGC APPEL

(The Ploughfield of the Horse).

Inishmore, 1952.

FIVE porpoises gambolling around our bows and white gulls crying, brought us to a high grey island.

A quarter of a mile out, with the ebb at the last quarter, we anchored in 5 fathoms. Round-bottomed boats, black tarred and with snake's head snouts, darted from the curving sandy beach, driven by two and three pairs of oars at astonishing speed.

They were manned by reddish-brown haired islanders with clear grey eyes, firm narrow chins and high complexions. They swarmed around us with hearty hails of "Good morning to ye! God bless the work! 'Tis a grand day." In the Gaeltacht all speak the hearty musical language of the blessed saints.

The black boats lay four abreast at the starboard gangway of our forward well-deck. Our donkey engine rattled, cask and drum and box and bale and keg and crate were hove overside into the hungry corraghs. So the black tarred boats were called. Or "canows."

As each got its little freight of oil or porter or tea or bred or bottled ale or biscuits, or letters, it shot ahead to make room for its hungry fellows. The boatmen pulled long square-handled oars, with blades thinner but no wider than the looms. Triangular wooden cleats on one side of the handles, perforated with auger holes, held the oars on the tholepins. The oars could not be feathered, but they could be laid alongside within the corragh without unshipping.

The sun blazed gloriously in a bright blue sky. It showed a caravan winding down from the ridge of the hill back of the beach. It showed men and horses and cattle and dogs. And women in black fringed shawls or bright green kerchiefs on their shining bronze hair. Some wore dark red skirts and bright blue jackets or dark brown homespun boneen blanket cloth. All walked with swinging arms and purposeful strides that never knew the agony of spike heeled shoes.

Coming to garner the freight of the corraghs?

Not so.

WHERE OUR CARAVAN HAS RESTED

When the procession reached the sand of the shore it divided. The petticoats, bright and dark, drove their cattle into a common clump and withdrew themselves to a turfy bank and all sat down. The horses, hobbled, were left to grass. Dogs, boys and men split the cattle into two groups, and began to sort them.

As the first bullock reached the edge of the receding tide a dozen men fell on him, parbuckled him with a stout sling of rope, pulled his feet from under him, and dragged him on his side into the sea. He struggled to his feet with great splashing. He flung up his head and tail and lashed about wildly until his feet lost the bottom.

His assailants, dripping like fountains, staggered ashore. One stood, waist deep in the waves, at the end of a long rope. The other end was a headstall for the bewildered beast. As he plunged and bellowed, this cowboy gathered in the slack until he had him "moored at a short hawse."

Then up foamed an empty corragh with three men at the oars. The fourth, in the stern, took over the beast's mooring line. Others ashore rushed at him again and pushed him into deep water. When he was quite afloat the corragh men bent to their oars. The man in the stern flung an arm around the bullock's horns, got a half nelson and dragged his head up over the stern.

ROUGH PASSAGE

Coughing seawater, eyes rolling and tongue slavering, the beast struggled free and plunged under. When he came up for air his nose was again dragged over the stern. After more kicking and struggling momentary escapes and quick recaptures, he floated quietly on his side and the oarsmen sweated their way out to the steamer with him.

After ten minutes hard tugging the corragh came alongside. The bullock had to be lifted bodily ten feet out of the water to clear the rail.

It all happened so quickly then. The hoisting tackle block was hooked into the sling around the beast, the donkey coughed and rattled, 6 or 7 cwt. of beef flopped over the rail and onto the deck like a bunch of wet red tarpaulin.

The cowboys cut the seizings of the sling adrift, the steer staggered to his feet, sick and belching, spurting green dung. Blood was running down his white-furred face. One of his horns was yellow, the other bright red. The wrenched-off shell of it lay in the litter of the deck like a dead nail-paring.

The cowboys dosed the injury with Stockholm tar and bound the gory quick of the horn with rag and rope yarn. Cattle can bleed to death from a hurt horn. Then with welts from gads and smacks from brawny palms, and twisting of the tail, amid deep-throated Gaelic "Hugh-hughs!" they drove him down a narrow alleyway to the open after deck. Five minutes later his coat was dry and he was rubbing the rag off his horn against a little black bullock which had just joined the ship by the same rough road.