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The Currachman

from Island Mist (2001) by Bob Bickerton

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about

Island Mist/The Currachman - The currach is a small boat used on the Western seaboard of Europe consisting of a wooden frame covered in animal hide or in latter years. canvas coated with tar. Very practical and maneuverable they were used for fishing up until recent times. I have tried here to weave together aspects of this tradition with the tragic practice of evacuating the inhabited islands off the West Coast of Ireland and Scotland in the last century.

lyrics

Where the island meets the sea, on a wild Atlantic shore,
To the sound of the breaker, to the peat fire I was born.
And as a child I’d run to the rock pools at the heads,
To watch the currachmen return from the fishing beds,
And if their heads were low, the women they’d run down,
To look the jersey o’er, to see whose son had drowned,
And the keening that I heard, I never would forget,
Until the time they keen for me, when my time I’ve met.

My father taught me well of the seas and fishing trade,
How to build the currach strong, how to build it safe,
How to form the hull, how to work the oar,
To stretch the canvas tight, and paint it with hot tar.
And many’s a dark night, without so much a care,
I’ve ridden out the storm on canvas and a prayer,
And the smell of fish and tar, I never will forget,
Until the time they keen for me, when my time I’ve met.

Many years have passed, the island’s met its fate,
Not conquered by the nor-west gale, just closed down by the state.
They’ve moved us all offshore, it’s better so they say,
So I’m living with my daughter now in Ameri-kay.
And though the sun is warm and on golden sands I stray,
I long to feel the island mist, to taste Atlantic spray.
And in my twilight years, I dream of what’s to come,
I wonder who will keen for me, now my time is done.

So now I’ll start the work; the final boat I’ll make,
I’ll sharpen up my tools and carve the laths again.
I’ll pull the canvas tight and paint it with hot tar,
And the smell will take me back to the strand on afar.
And when I die no funeral, no casket or no grave,
Just lash me down to the hull and push me to the waves,
And if the wind proves fair and the currents they prove strong,
They’ll take me to that far off land, the land where I belong.

credits

from Island Mist (2001), released January 1, 2001
Words and Music Bob Bickerton, Arranged Bob Bickerton. Guest musicians: Pete Rainey – Viola, Peter Walton – Melodeon

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Bob Bickerton Nelson, New Zealand

Bob Bickerton is based in Nelson, New Zealand and has had a long career as a music manager, sound engineer and performing artist.

His earlier albums specialised in traditional and self-penned Celtic music, but in more recent times he has collaborated with other artists as a kaiwhakatangitangi or practitioner of taonga pūoro, the traditional instruments of Māori. ... more

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