White Coracle
Main Image: White Coracle/ Cwrwgyl Gwyn 2024 ( temp photograph
In Search of The Coracle
The coracle is a small river vessel that has been in use in the UK and Ireland for at least 2000 years. Now there are only 3 UK rivers licenced for coracle fishing, all 3 in west Wales .
It was predominantly used as a single person fishing vessel (coracle fishermen use a long net that arched between two boats) however it has other uses such a ferrying people and material across rivers (coming into its own when there are floods), log clearing and to assist with river sheep dipping.
“ A medieval traveller in Wales, 800 years ago saw such men and marvelled at boats ‘made of twigs, not oblong nor pointed but almost round, or rather triangular, covered both within and without with raw hides…The fisherman according to the custom, of the country, in going to and from the rivers, carry these boats on their shoulders” Giraldus de Barri (Gerald of Wales) AD 1188
The word ‘twigs’ referred to here were of course more substantial than that term implies today; hazel, ash or willow sticks were cleaved or sawn as laths (ash)
In Search of the Coracle is an ongoing project concerning the west Wales coracles in Sarah’s locality particularly that of the River Towy/ Afon Tywi . Sarah describes her research as a design anthropology by being involved in a making process with people from the tradition. She is interested in the way the individual rivers have influenced the regional design of these boats due to their geographic specificity.
Sarah is contributing to a project by Dr Owain Jones and Heather Green - a Lexicon of the Severn and she is compiling a parallel lexicon of the Tywi which includes specific welsh language used by coracle fishermen to describe their culture, the coracle and the nets, even if they are not Welsh speakers. Some of these sayings and nomenclature are thought to come from medieval Welsh. An example of these niche terms is the astel orlais which is the plank at right angles to the seat creating a box for the caught fish and Clyfwychwr twilight/the time to start fishing.
White Coracle (the vessel) along with photographic prints of performative works as well archival images were exhibited at Oriel Archipelago, Llansteffan in an exhibition called Crossings and Driftings November/December 2024. ( See Oriel Archipelago on this site)
Sarah apprenticed herself to a local coracle fisherman in order to build a coracle. It is the first one she had made, it has a skin of white calico, is semi transparent and not yet ‘amphibious’. She is using this for performative work.
The second one will be pitched/ painted and ready for the river
