SHIPS AND SHIPPING
and could be taken up rivers and carried by the crew
if necessary, in effect “the only ocean-going landing
craft ever devised”(Bertil Almgren). Ships of this type
(with a stern rudder) were in use throughout the middle
ages and were particularly favored by the Scots of the
Isles (and most likely the O’Malleys of Connacht) as
pirate galleys.
Trading and Fishing Vessels
Later medieval records mentioning ships sometimes
give the name, type, and home port, and if this infor-
mation is accompanied by a description of the amount
of cargo and number of crewmen, then a reasonably
accurate picture of the vessel in question can be
deduced. The principle types of trading boats in Irish
ports during the period were: cogs, hulks, barges,
balingers, caravels, and, more rarely, carracks. Crayers
and pickards were most numerous and appear to have
been used mainly for fishing.
By the thirteenth century, cog is the term used to
describe the typical seagoing sailing vessel of north-
ern Europe. It was a sturdily built, single-masted,
square-sailed, rather tubby ship with a length to breadth
proportion of about 3:1. Cogs varied in size. Two trans-
porting wine were in Southampton in 1326; the Johan
of 160 tons and a crew of 47, and La Seintemari of 60
tons and a crew of 27. In 1338 Maurice, son of the
earl of Desmond, hired La Rodecogge of Limerick to
sail to Gascony. The hulk was originally crescent—
shaped, made of strong curved boards fastened
together by external pieces, and bound together at each
end of the ship without stem or stern posts. It was
driven by a large square sail and steered by side rud-
ders. A hulk from Waterford, the Blessed Mary, carried
corn to Gascony in 1297, and a stylized representation
of a hulk appears on the municipal seal of Youghal,
1527.
Barges appear around the beginning of the fifteenth
century. They may have carried oars as well as sail and
have been about 50 to 100 tons capacity. La barge de
Saint John left Ireland with a cargo of 8,400 hides in
1413, and barges are mentioned in 1392–1393; one
leaving Drogheda to trade with Irish enemies and
another being purchased from Gerald le Byrne, “cap-
tain of his nation.” Balingers appear to have been two-
masted sailing vessels between 20 and 50 tons used
for fishing and trade. The Katherine, a 50-ton balinger
of Waterford, was requisitioned for the king’s service
in 1414.
Merchant ships increased in size during the fif-
teenth century; the average size of Bristol ships using
the port of Bordeaux rose from 88 tons (c. 1400) to
around 150 tons (in 1450). The huge, rounded, two- and
three-decked Carracks with high aftercastles and three
masts are noted in the later fifteenth century. It is not
known whether they regularly visited Irish ports,
although in 1431 a Venetian carrack chartered by Italian
and Aragonese merchants was captured while on a
voyage from Brittany to Ireland, and the 320-ton London
ship bound for Santiago de Compostela, which picked
up four hundred pilgrims in New Ross in 1477 was in
all likelihood a carrack. With minor additions to the
sail plan this vessel represents the full-rigged ship of
the sixteenth century. In 1567, John Goghe’s map of
Ireland has a drawing of two of these ships in the Irish
Sea. The map also shows a caravel off the south coast.
Developed by the Portuguese, it was long and low in
the water and by the sixteenth century carried square
sails as well as lateen (triangular) sails. Because of its
speed and maneuverability it was a favorite of Breton
pirates.
Crayers and Pickards seem to be smaller versions
of the balinger. A number of ships coming to Ireland
from Bristol around 1400 are described as crayers.
Between 20 and 30 tons, they were crewed by up to
sixteen men. The earl of Ormond hired a crayer in
Waterford several times in the 1380s to travel to
England. Crayers were probably decked and with a
cabin, whereas pickards were open. Customs tolls at
Ardglass, County Down, in 1515 charged five shillings
for boats “with a top” and three shillings and four
pence for every pickard or ship “without a top.”Shipbuilding
Shipbuilding took place in the Irish ports in the later
Middle Ages. In 1234 the king ordered two sixty-oared
and four forty-oared galleys to be built in Ireland, and
Drogheda was ordered to make a second galley in
1241, Waterford to make two, and Cork and Limerick
one each. Some idea of the numbers of ships in the
Irish ports may be formed from the requisitioning that
took place in 1301 and in 1303 to transport soldiers to
Scotland. In 1301, 46 out of 74 arrested were Irish and
in 1303, 37 out of 173. A survey (by W. A. Childs) of
ships using Bristol 1480–1489 showed that at least
seventy but possibly ninety ships and ninety-three
working shipmasters were from Ireland. Add about
thirty more operating in and out of Chester and it
would appear that Ireland was well provided with ship-
ping in the medieval period.
TIMOTHY O’ NEILLReferences and Further Reading
O’Neill, Timothy. Merchants and Mariners in Medieval Ireland.
Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1987.