Horned Heads and Good People: Schooner Days MLXVII (1067)

by C. H. J. Snider

GALWAY, City of Thirteen Tribes,

AD 1952.

EVER since my first and only school licking in Kleinburg, Ont.; S.S. No. 17, Vaughan, it said over the door on which I turned my sore back—I've planned to go and see islands, and old stones and good people.

I'm doing it all at last, in a 40-year-old coal burner of a few hundred tons. She circumnavigates Ireland with a crew of six or seven, including master, mate, engineer, steward and a few firemen-deck-hands.

Our captain's uniform is a plain topped cap, a winemark down larboard side of his face, fierce eyebrows, an engaging smile and a deep brogue. Bal O'DiaAr an 'Obair! That's the way we do be talking.

FAR TO THE WEST

We're in the Aran Islands. They lie thirty miles out from the gullet of Galway Bay, the teeth that take the Atlantic's hardfisted fury ceaselessly.

We're out of of Galway now, though we hail from Dublin, picking up island cattle for the annual "fair" or two-day open market in the grey old City of Strange Traders. It was also called "of the Tribes," from the thirteen families settled here by the Anglo-Normandy Burghs long ago. They became Burkes and all more Irish than the native kings themselves, but to this day you will not find an O' or a Mac to their names. Six hundred years ago they made the law that "neither O nor Mac might swagger in the streets of Galway." They carved on the city gates: "From Ferocious O'Flaherties Good Lord Deliver Us."

These Aran Islands called collectively Ara and pronounced like Eire, were O'Flaherty country.

STEAK ON THE HOOF

This day we loaded thirty-seven head in Aran, mostly two-year-old steers and a few heifers and cows, besides three young calves and two horses. The cow hands who worked both on board and on shore, were the owners of the cattle or their neighbors.

In Aran each man helps his fellow, for he could not live without his fellow's help. Cattle loading is too rough for women and boys, but the women and girls drive their own cattle in to beach or market.

The cowboys all wore boneen or blanket-cloth, much-patched trousers, sleeveless jerkins, and jerseys of black or blue wool knitted in curious geometric patterns that give them sure grip on rocks and sand and seaweed, or the slender ribs and thin planks of the corragh boats they had on their feet pampooties of cowhide, with their hair outside, and leggings of heavy wool yarn, pulled on over their trouser bottoms.

All they wore was island wool, and in had no fear of catching cold, though in and out of sea water, all day long, without once changing clothes. But a drenching of rainwater meant pneumonia for them.

CALVES IN THE CORRAGHS

The first bullock aboard was the only one showing injury, though they all took a beating against the steel plates of the ship's side and rail. The little calves did not swim for it. They were trussed up and brought out in the corraghs, bundles of baby beef. They were moored by themselves, on short tether, in the forward well.

The horses swain readily after the corraghs and were handled more gently. They were lowered into the hold through the main hatch, and haltered. The cattle were untethered but their quarterdeck was so full of them they could only move by walking over one another. Fore-and-aft cleats on the deck gave them footing against rolling.

FORTS BEFORE HISTORY

At Aranmore we could load from the pier at high water, so the beasts came aboard dryshod. They had to be swum from the beaches at Innishmaan, where the great grey circular fort of Dunn Connor pens up much prehistory. Also at Inishere, where, the ragged ruins of one of the castles of the Anglo-Norman deBurghs or else, the Irish Rourkes look down, had the beasts to be dragged a quarter of a mile through the sea.

They were bound for the 2-day cattle fair in Galway, thirty miles away. All were light cattle, but they would fetch from £40 to £60 on the hoof—for in Ireland as in Toronto the cow has jumped over the moon and the cash register.

There were forts in Ara, great ones, likely even before the Flood, and if you can stand it I may tell about some of the old stones found there many's the year after the school licking. Perhaps next week. But I'd like to tell you first of other Galway hookers than the ones we loaded in Ara.