Boat-Builders

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Boat Building at Baltimore (Image Credit: Lawrence Collection, National Library of Ireland)

The port of Cork was a significant ship-building centre from the 1820s to the 1870s, and would have supplied some small craft to West Cork.

In West Cork itself, Baltimore was the main centre for boat-building (Bielenberg, 2009, p.128). In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the majority of West Cork fishermen used small locally-built vessels made of timber.

During this period, there were developments in boat design. Many fishermen from other parts of Ireland and overseas fished the West Cork waters using larger boats such as the Manx lugger and trawlers.

Iron vessels became more widespread during the latter half of the nineteenth century, though they were not widely adopted. From 1869, steamers were used to transport mackerel packed in ice to English ports, and from there inland via rail (Rynne, 2006, p.203).

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