School: Baile Mac Rabhartaigh (roll number 3978)

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1. A Wreck (continued)

   

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   the people who were cutting wrack on the rocks off the shore could see that the boat was weighing heavily in the water and its occupants getting into distress. When the boat was about a stone throw off Keelkey point it was seen to quiver and sink and at the same time its occupants were seen to leap probably to get clear of the entangling seaweed which they had aboard and have a chance of swimming. This they must have failed to do for I am told the servant boy could have swam across the whole bay but he never came in alive. It is expected he got entangled in the seaweed. I expect the rest of the men could swim too. Miss Madden waved her shawl to her brother but he was no swimmer and could do nothing for her. Her other brother who was a swimmer was not there but he always said if he had, he would have saved her life.

   Boating of wrack was customary at that time. Five people were generally in the boat two to cut and two to take in, the other to pail out the water taken in by the wet wrack. The wrack hook was made from the blade of a scythe attached to a long pole. The boat sat on the (wrack) water over the wrack beds and the cutter reached down his hook and kept cutting under-neath [underneath?] the water. This rose to the top when severed from the rocks. The second person pulled it in with the help of a blunt scythe hook. But before starting operations a creel was generally placed in the bottom of the boat mouth upwards. No wrack was put in this creel so that when

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. time
      1. historical periods by name (~25)
         1. the great famine (~4,013)

   Language

   English

   Informant

   John Mangan

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   48

   Address

   Birra, Co. Donegal