Alan Martin is a professional potter and mouldmaker, whose address is Carrick Studio, Goc Craig House, 70 Sealstown Road, Mallusk, Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim, BT36 4QU, Northern Ireland
 

The thrust of this paper is practical. Essentially, its purpose is to examine some of the ways in which unwieldly artefacts such as dugout boats (perhaps better known as logboats) are dealt with by those bodies in 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.

Ireland stands at the wet fringe of northwestern Europe. High rainfall over much of the country encourages plentiful rivers, lakes and bog. Until quite recent times it also supported dense woodland in many districts. All of this presented travellers on land with considerable difficulties before deforestation and modern engineering overcame the worst obstacles. The history of warfare in the region, for example, illustrates just how impracticable it might be to conduct a land campaign without prudently adapting to local conditions. (Lydon, 1963.) Ireland was no place to fight after the fashion which brought medieval English armies success in France. At almost any season military planning risked dislocation or complete breakdown through want of reliable lines of communications for bodies of men whose impedimenta, or whose fighting instincts, did not readily adjust to conditions under foot. Throughout much of the country the same uncertainties hindered civilians trying to carry on their ordinary everyday lives as well. What it all boils down to is that, whereas no reason exists to believe that journeys by horse or on foot were impracticable for most people at most times of the year, occasions did arise when alternative means of transport became very welcome.

Climate and topography together, therefore, go a long way towards explaining why in Ireland the logboat persisted as a common, if perhaps only intermittently-used means of transport, until about three hundred years ago. Further east in Britain and over most (though not all) parts of continental Europe its survival this late was very much patchier. (McGrail, 1978: 334;Johnstone, 1980: 48f.) Of course, from quite an early period in Ireland, as elsewhere, plank-built boats both for rowing and sailing existed alongside dugouts, being used for inland and coastal travel alike. With them, it is fair to say, went a level of technical and maritime expertise that compares favourably with other parts of contemporary Europe. (De Courcy Ireland, 1989: passim.) For inland use, though, the logboat seems to have retained an edge in terms of user preference, at least upon some of the more sheltered rivers and their tributaries, and especially around the shores of the major lake systems which exist in the north of Ireland. Perhaps plank-built craft were found to be too costly or awkward for many individuals to build and maintain. Or perhaps they proved too much of a handful to float and work upon some of the more marginal water courses and lakesides that had to be used if overland routes became impassable.

Being very much a homespun vehicle, the logboat receives fairly limited mention in Irish written historical sources up until the latter part of the 17^th century. (Lucas, 1963.) And not all of what mention it did get was favourable. On rather too many occasions logboats found their way into government records because of the illicit or downright violent actions of some of those who used them. This pushed into the background their more normal and peaceable uses: as ferries, as fishing boats, or as conveyances to and from homesteads built in the middle of small lakes for security reasons, to give only three examples. Other documentary evidence is just as meagre, consisting in one instance of a contemporary topographical map bearing thumbnail sketches of logboats in use during a siege at Enniskillen Castle, between Upper and Lower Lough Erne, in 1593. (Fig. 1.)

Archaeologically, too, there are shortcomings. In common with other parts of northwestern Europe, much of the information that has been collected about logboats in the north of Ireland has come principally on the back of chance finds, and only in the smallest degree from planned excavation. Of around sixty of these craft discovered in local waters over the last twenty-five years or so, for example, the remains of just three have turned up during a proper excavation. One lay in the bed of the Quoile River alongside the monastic site of Inch Abbey, near Downpatrick, and was recovered in 1992. (Fig. 2.) The others were raised in 1994 from beneath the site of a burnt mound, or former cooking place, on the former shoreline of a shrunken small lough at Derrybrusk, near Lisbellaw, County Fermanagh. The latter two were hewn from alder, not the usual oak, and dated BC 1200 - BC 1000. (Queen’s University of Belfast, Radiocarbon Research Laboratory, samples 3846 and 3848.) This is not to say that other modes of discovery produce dramatically inferior results in terms of completeness or significance. Rather, it underlines the point that investigable contexts and any associated finds tend to be in shorter supply than one might wish.

Altogether, only about one hundred and twenty reliably attested logboats have been found and recorded in the last century and a half or so, from waters within the political entity of what, from the early 1920s, became the Province of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. It is far from being a satisfactory number upon which to base statistical arguments about size, shape, regional typologies, use, loading, workability and longevity. All the same, it does seem that logboats were not well-known locally from coastal bays or from the more open reaches of the larger tidal estuaries. Some very early specimens, dating from the early 4^th millennium BC, have been located in Larne Lough on the northeast coast. (Queen’s University of Belfast, Radiocarbon Research Laboratory, samples 4067 and 4091.) These, though, are still the exceptions. It is also clear that certain features found on logboats elsewhere in the world are absent: for example, outriggers to aid stability in the water, which are quite common on logboats worked by paddle or by pole today in parts of Africa and South America. But all this may be put down to no more than the accident of survival of fragile remains in an aggressive maritime environment. Or it could just as well reflect the accident of discovery up till now.

A considerable number of practical difficulties face those who have to cope with massive timber artefacts that come to light with little warning, typically during land drainage or river dredging, or perhaps after river flooding. Northern Ireland is no exception to anywhere else in this report. In the past, provision for the study, storage, display or reburial of logboats has tended to be somewhat erratic and unco-ordinated, with the emphasis altering as personnel, interests, resources and opportunities did likewise. The best results have accrued from a carefully devised strategy, in place since the late 1970s, and purposely designed to cope with each situation on its merits as it develops after a new discovery. Without this to fall back upon, the chances of satisfactorily confronting the kind of logistical and ethical issues raised by fresh logboats, or, indeed, by other large timbers - such as those from horizontal water mills - are very much reduced. (Spriggs, 1990; Fry, 1996; Fry and Martin, 1993,1994.)

Several strands go towards making up the approach followed by the two authorities responsible for handling large timber discoveries: the Department of the Environment for N. Ireland, through the Agency known as Environment and Heritage Service, and the Department of Antiquities of the Ulster Museum. If, after recording and sampling, and after probing the immediate vicinity for associated material, a new find can safely be left where it is, at no further risk from dredging, land drainage, flooding or inquisitive youths, then that is the procedure gladly adopted. If, on the other hand, removal is unavoidable, then heavy lifting tackle, transport and, not the least important, a dedicated workshop are to hand to facilitate further study and recording in more agreeable surroundings. A private field is also available, at a location kept as secret as possible, in which the most damaged or least significant remains can safely be reinterred, in carefully marked individual deep graves, and left there in perpetuity. A high proportion of logboats are in fact either left in situ or reburied in safety: 60% of the 48 which came to light between 1975 and 1992, for example. (Figs 3 and 4.)

Scope does exist to present more logboats to the public. There are facilities for doing so if effective use can be made of them. In Northern Ireland ‘heritage’ is very much a growth sector of the leisure and tourism industry. The latter, despite the Troubles over the last quarter of a century, has managed to retain its importance in the provincial economy. (NI Tourist Board, 1993a,1993b,1994.) Two major museums exist in or near the capital, Belfast. There is also an incomplete sprinkling of regional museums, and a rather higher number of more locally-orientated display centres of one kind or another. The latter are funded from various sources, and are run for the most part by Government Departments or District Councils, or by bodies delegated by or approved of by central and regional authorities for the purpose. (Fry, 1990.)

All the same, taking advantage of the potential opportunity does sometimes mean having to break down prejudices, professional no less than popular, against an unglamorous exhibit. It also means changing minds in favour of tackling the sizes and weights involved. Gradually, though, gentle but persistent pressure applied over a number of years seems to be starting to pay off. The logboat has become less of a museological leper. More people have been persuaded of its merits as a much-neglected artefact, with a useful role to play in exhibition work. Currently, five original craft are on display in various fairly well-scattered locations in the north of Ireland, with a sixth lined up to go on display in the outbuildings of a restored mill in County Fermanagh during 1999. (Fig. 5.)

It remains disappointing, though, that it still has not been possible to find a place to show a restored small logboat remnant dredged from the Quoile River, near Downpatrick, in the summer of 1991. Although lacking a little in visual appeal, at the time it was retrieved this craft proved to be the oldest logboat in the whole of Ireland, dated dendrochronologically to about BC 2700. (Queen’s University of Belfast, Palaeoecology Laboratory, dendrochronological sample number Q8520.) (Fig. 6.) (Bourke and Fry, 1992; Fry and Martin, 1994.) Since it was found, older logboats have been located both in the north of Ireland and in the Irish Republic, pushing back the chronology possibly into the late Mesolithic, and thus comparing favourably with continental European discoveries.

In some respects the issue of encouraging and meeting the demand for exhibitable logboats is bound up with the still-unresolved debate on whether or not there ought to be proliferation of heritage displays in essentially non-museum contexts. (Fry, 1990.) Are the display facilities in question suited to original artefacts, for example, given that managements may work to rather different criteria than those which have commonly existed in the museum world proper? Naturally, government bodies like Environment and Heritage Service must be seen to be impartial. This must not lead on, though, to them shirking responsibility for offering guidance on how best to handle particular problems regarding the care of antiquities. One way in which they can avoid controversy in respect of logboats, and at the same time continue to exploit much-needed opportunities to reduce their own storage crises, is by retaining a firm controlling hand over the ongoing care and maintenance requirements for craft loaned to third parties for exhibition. Local bodies for their part are usually quite receptive to an offer of this sort, since it means that the responsibility that they have taken on will not become an encumbrance, but can instead be shared with people in the best position to advise and help them.

By comparison with the psychological and logistical issues, some of the other practical aspects of addressing logboat finds, and indeed finds of any large worked timbers, are almost straightforward! Information can be circulated in various ways to try to reach and to alert potential finders living or working in the countryside. This applies especially to those moving earth or managing water courses, or residing anywhere near rivers liable to flood: all potent sources of fresh discoveries. Over the years, too, a programme of exhibitions and talks at agricultural shows and in schools, and of publishing booklets and articles in accessible local journals, has borne fruit in terms of increased public awareness, care, and help. Sometimes the media assist, too, through broadcasts or, in one instance, by showing the actual retrieval of a logboat on the regional television evening news programme.

One promotional tactic of growing interest these days is the experimental re-creation for hands-on educational purposes. ‘Interactive technology’, as it is dubbed, offers a useful method of bringing obscure historical topics before a wider public audience, young and old. Fashioning a wooden copy of an ancient craft such as a logboat presents the chance to touch and feel scarcely possible with the original antiquity, an example of which may of course be put on display under protection alongside. (Goodburn, 1993.)

Just such a project, in fact, was attempted forty summers ago, beside a lake at Hillsborough, near Belfast, under the guidance of the then Director of the Ulster Museum, the late W. A. Seaby. (Hutchinson, 1960; Seaby, 1989.) An oak tree was felled and reduced in weight from about three tons to half a ton in the hollowing-out process, before being launched and paddled across the water by seven of the enthusiastic teenagers who had done most of the work on it over six weeks. A photographic record exists of the various tooling methods used at different stages to cope with the considerable bulk of the unseasoned log, as well as of the water trials. (Figs. 7-10.) From hindsight, it is regrettable that this successful experimental craft did not find its way into permanent safekeeping. Instead, it appears to have been left on the lake shoreline, where it eventually sank, to be rediscovered briefly during cleaning works some twenty years later by individuals who thought they had stumbled across an antiquity!

Two similar projects have been undertaken in Northern Ireland more recently, in 1994 and 1995, by Dr Niall Gregory, then a postgraduate student at Edinburgh University. Gregory also used oak tree trunks to fashion two dugout hulls, one more than twice the size of the other. The object of the exercise was to test their respective performances in water under load, and in one case under sail as well. (Fig. 11.) (Gregory, 1997.) Unlike on the previous occasion in 1959, both hulls were carefully preserved after work on them had been completed. The larger of the two made by Gregory is currently on display in a visitors centre at Castlewellan, run by the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland.

Occasionally a logboat find is too good to rebury but, for one reason or another, even if restored to a high standard, is unlikely to attract the immediate interest of an organisation willing or capable of putting it on display, or of offering satisfactory long-term storage for it. One interim solution, which admittedly does nothing to help alleviate the ongoing storage crisis in respect of artefacts themselves, is to make a lightweight copy in fibreglass resin of the whole or part of a logboat. This can then be offered to potential exhibitors, accompanied by a panel or two of mounted photographs, drawings, and description. (Fry and Martin, 1994.) Indeed, it even enables medium-term study and display objectives to be achieved in more than one place at the same time. At one period in 1993, for example, copies of the ornately-carved centre section of a recently-found 5^th century AD logboat from a river confluence near Strabane, in the far northwest of the Province, were on display at two venues. One of these was the public library at Strabane. The second was a primary school, many miles away on the southern shores of Lough Neagh, within a district where logboat discoveries have been and still are quite common.

In considering the practicalities of making a manageable lightweight copy, a number of things must be emphasised. First, that such a project should be contemplated only if benefit in terms of study, display and public relations is seen to be worthwhile and cost-effective. Second, that work undertaken without proper professional guidance is very ill-advised. Moulding and casting each grow in complexity and risk the larger the undertaking. Methods need careful adaptation, both in order to keep overheads under reasonable control, and to ensure the safety of operators when working upon and turning over sizeable timbers, and also, of course, when using considerable quantities of inflammable and toxic materials.

Third, copying is not a means to justify subsequent reburial of original artefacts, for which different criteria altogether need to be applied. Take, for example, the logboat featuring in the illustrations used to demonstrate the copying technique (Figs. 12-20). This craft regrettably became rather mis-shapen before conservation could take effect. In its natural wood format it would therefore have made an unsatisfactory exhibit. Clearly, though, the splendid woodcarving used in its construction was worthy of being brought before as wide an audience as possible. Making copies to ensure that this happened fell comfortably within current strategy guidelines, which aim to be flexible and adaptable as well as being pragmatic.

To make clear the principal stages which all lightweight copying on this scale entails, the authors have prepared a sequence of block models, representing what was actually done in the case of part of one particular logboat. These are shown in Figures 12-20. They explain how best to handle the three-dimensional aspect, resulting in a mould which is capable of producing a cast that is hollow and light, rather than solid and heavy.

Gaps and splits in the original wood may require reinforcing: for example, with an epoxy putty that sets slightly flexible⁽¹⁾, and also with dowelling rods, the latter sometimes of stainless steel to restore the desired strength. After the putty has set, any surplus is cut back to avoid highlighting the former defect, both upon the artefact and when the latter is reproduced in the mould. Needless to say, one confines repair work to damage that demonstrably has occurred after the logboat’s working life was over. Often this is caused during the turbulent circumstances of present-day rediscovery. Repairs carried out during the time a vessel was in use are left untouched where this is practicable, in order not to interfere with the artefact’s historical message. Finally, a suitable release agent must be thoroughly applied to all surfaces in order that, when cured, very expensive moulding rubber is easily removed without tears - or tears!

For moulding, silicone rubber⁽²⁾ is used for the best results, especially if several casts are needed. Latex rubber is not a satisfactory alternative, for various technical reasons. Some people might elect to use plaster, but on a large scale there are drawbacks, weight being the most obvious. (Gregson, 1978.) Rubber is applied to one side of the original timber and then to the other, without removing the rubber on the first side in between the two operations. Provision is made for a seam along the circumference, enabling the two halves of the mould to separate at a later stage. While both halves are still in place on the timber, each in turn is dressed with a fibreglass resin support case, or ‘mother’ mould, also suitably seamed. The support case ensures that casting can be done without distortion upon an otherwise quite floppy rubber. Where appropriate, modification of the rubber with additives is needed to enable it to cling to vertical as well as to horizontal surfaces. Overlooking this important point results in moulds of variable thickness, liable to suffer damage either when removed from the artefact, or when casts are taken, regardless of how well supported by the mandatory fibreglass casing.

Casting consists of successive applications of fibreglass tape (or sheet) and polyester resin on to the surfaces of the two halves of the mould, each in their respective support cases. All four elements are then brought together along the predetermined seam line. The result is a hollow entity whose walls are no more than a centimetre or two thick. Some polyester resins may have to be bulked a little, in order to reduce the number of separate applications of a viscous, but nonetheless still relatively thin substance.

Careful thought must always be given to producing optimum strength, weight and portability in the finished copy. If the overall dimensional factor is a problem, then it is both wise and feasible to make two, three, four or more separate sections of mould for a corresponding number of cast sections of the logboat. Sections may be joined temporarily by plugs to produce the full copy, or supported by a discreet template along the joins. Weight can be adjusted if desired by mixing small lead or steel shot in with the resin. It is difficult to say precisely what the proportions should be between the weight of the original and that of its copy. One must remember that a logboat can weigh anything from a few hundredweights to a few tons. Generally speaking, therefore, one would hope that, at least in the larger undertakings, a copy weighed altogether no more than a tenth of the original!

Colour is a further aspect to consider. Rather than rely wholly upon a chip-prone tint applied to cured resin at the finish, it may be better to introduce at least a broad background colouring throughout the whole body of the cast.

Lastly, at all times when casting with polyester resin, the correct environmental conditions must be maintained regarding warmth and humidity, neither of which should be excessive. This will reduce the risk of delamination that would jeopardise the integrity and also the safety of a large piece.

Obviously there are details omitted from this rapid technical synopsis. All the same, it should serve to highlight the main aspects of what remains a reasonably practical interim means of coping with the problem posed by a continuing, if intermittent, stream of new logboat discoveries. In particular, it holds out hope for those craft that are not in danger of being reburied, but which might nonetheless present a measure of difficulty in either examining or exhibiting them.

The theme of this paper has been to suggest ways of confronting the issues presented by a type of navigable craft hitherto attracting somewhat less interest than its plank-built early counterparts. Certainly, straightforward prejudice against large or primitive-looking artefacts needs to be addressed. Since, however, the number of logboats which even the most well-intentioned institutions between them can absorb is finite, alternative means of coping must be devised. Experience in the north of Ireland shows the feasibility of a multi-stranded programme. This is aimed at controlling the numbers which have to be dealt with, at undertaking selective restoration, at reburial of the poorer or badly damaged specimens, and at returning the accumulated results of discoveries to the public domain through publications and exhibitions. Not all exhibitions need to be in museum buildings, of course, if good copies of the original artefacts are to hand. This adds up to a graded and progressive approach, where the confrontational aspect is undertaken unaggressively but nevertheless firmly. The ultimate goal is to help lessen the discrimination which still exists in some quarters against an important part of the evidence for early transport and communications.

(1) A two-part Araldite compound, SV/HV, has been used for many years both by archaeological and architectural conservators. It is a CIBA-GEIGY product, and is supplied by B and K Resins Ltd, Ashgrove Estate, Ashgrove Road, Bromley, Kent, BT1 4TH. back to text

(2) Silform Number 1 Grade. Supplied by Stag Polymers and Sealants Limited, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, Middlesex UB7 7RA.back to text

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The authors wish to thank Ms Gail Pollock and Mr Tony Corey of Environment and Heritage Service for providing photographic expertise. Staff at Historic Monuments Central Works Depot, Moira, Co Down, have rendered outstanding assistance over the years in successfully retrieving many logboats and in transporting a number of restored craft to display centres. For help with displays, special thanks are due to Forest Service, Department of Agriculture (NI); to the National Trust; to Craigavon Borough Council; to Strabane District Council; to St Mary’s Primary School, Maghery, Co. Armagh; to the Lough Neagh Discovery Centre, near Lurgan, Co. Armagh; to the Tower Museum and the Harbour Museum in the City of Londonderry; and to the Rural Traditions Exhibition Centre at Creggan, Co. Tyrone. The ladies of the Word Processing Unit, Environment and Heritage Service, kindly transposed a typescript into language that could be electronically stored and edited. This paper is published on the Internet by permission of the Department of the Environment (NI).