#galwayhooker – Although the classic cutter-rigged Galway hookers are synonymous these days with Connemara and Kinvara, time was when there was a thriving boatbuilding community in the Claddagh in the heart of Galway city. But there hadn't been a substantial traditional boat built there since the 1930s until recently, when shipwright Peter Connolly and the group known as the Claddagh Boatmen began a project to build a 34ft leath bhad in authentic style.
Their evocative and inspiring work has been recorded in meticulous detail by film maker Tony Walsh, and his 86-minute documentary Croi an Claddagh will be making its debut in the New Irish Documentaries section in the 27th annual Galway Film Fleadh, which gets under way in the western capital today.
Croi an Claddagh will be premiered in the Town Hall Theatre in Courthouse Square at 2.15pm this Thursday, July 9th. Meanwhile here's a taster of the kind of work that Tony Walsh has created to record this very special boat-building challenge.
