I saw this over 10 years ago for the first time, when visiting my usual spots around Ballyferriter.

It was written on a gravestone in Dun Chaoin.

I liked it because, this passing on of skills and culture, seems to defeat time. Its kind of like some part of one person (knowledge and ability) is kept alive and  passes to the next.


The Gannets are still Diving, the cormorants and puffins are bobbing.

In the swell, the herring gulls screech no less shrilly then long ago.

And few boats are fishing south west of the Skelligs.

I knew the fathers of the men out there, without echo sound or radar

They never fouled their nets on bad ground.

They knew the floor of the ocean, like a farmer knows his fields.

knowledge handed down by word of mouth through generations.