Southend Community Project

As I mentioned in a previous posting in December I would be starting a community based learning project in the New Year. Well yesterday as a group of eight we visited the shed where the boat will be constructed and we met with some of the lads that will be building the boat. We met the community coordinator who explained the role he plays at Southend coordinating the different types of projects in the centre that cater for everyone in the community.The various projects that are run from the community resource centre include the breakfast club, an oral history project and the boat project and many other incentives to get the local people involved.

The work of making the boat is voluntary and in a way a sense of giving something to the community by creating a spirit of community and an interest for the participants. I'm really very excited about this project and it's a great opportunity to experience this type of active citizenship in a local community and not a commercial venture focusing on profits etc. As a city person boats didn't feature at all other than a very occasional visit to the Poolbeg in Dublin or a visit to the seaside at Bray,  Dun Laoire or a bus trip to Greystones, which included the bag of chips and a 99 ice cream.

Everyone seems very enthusiastic about the project and I'm not surprised because it's different and  long traditional skills will be applied.  In previous years a shed didn't exist but now a new shed has been installed so the work won't be based on being weather permitting . Our part in the project is to help document the process of making the boat by video, photography and drawings and we hope to be able to pass some computer skills onto the women and men of the community. Obviously we will also get stuck in helping making the boat too and it will be great to see one being made. It will certainly I think give us a great sense of what community is to-day. On Thursday we will have an opportunity to see the bottom of the boat being marked out the first stage of the process and as the weeks go on have the opportunity to talk to the lads about the boats in more detail and their participation of being involved in such a project.

These boats have played a very important role all over Ireland in communities and just looking at some of my archive of photographs I had taken pictures of these dingy type boats while visiting parts of the country over the years and is in some way they are very much a part of our landscape and form part of our identity. 

Delphi, Connemara, Co.Mayo

Muckross, Killarney, Co Kerry