Malcolm
F. Fry and Alan Martin: Confronting the logboat: developments in the North
of Ireland
This paper is appears exclusively in the IJAI.
Keywords: Dugout boats, logboats, Northern Ireland, Water transportation, communications, museum exhibitions, artefact reburial, public awareness, fibreglass copying.
Abstract: The thrust of this paper is practical. Essentially, its purpose is to examine some of the ways in which unwieldy artefacts such as dugout boats (perhaps better known as logboats) are dealt with by those bodies in the Northern Ireland responsible for heritage matters. It starts with a very brief look at the kind of things which discoveries over the years may be able to tell us, both about the boats themselves and about the times when they were used. But the intention here is not to probe too deeply into these aspects. The technical, historical and sociological sides to local logboat building and use are explained at greater length by one of the present writers (MFF) in a forthcoming book. This is due to be published in mid-1999 by Environment and Heritage Service, under the title Coití: Logboats from Northern Ireland.If you wish to cite this paper, please reference the journal of origin in all work.
