The CURRAGHS of IRELAND

Formerly curraghs were in use both on the mainland of this county and in Inismurray, and we have an interesting account by Beranger in his Tour of Connaught1 , published in 1779, of how the first thing that attracted his attention when visiting Inismurray was a curragh made of basketwork, covered with the hide of a horse or a cow. He says: "As the members were six or eight inches apart and the sun was shining bright, and the skin transparent, it seemed to me to be a vessel of glass, as I could see the water through it."