As a child, I spent a great deal of time with my maternal grandfather, William Morgan, whose parents had come over from the Vale of Glamorgan. He was always proud of his Welsh background and passed that pride along to me as well as a few words of "yr hen iaith" (the old language).
[[{"fid":"113","view_mode":"default","fields":{"format":"default","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"The Lap of Wales Challenge","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"The Lap of Wales Challenge"},"type":"media","attributes":{"alt":"The Lap of Wales Challenge","title":"The Lap of Wales Challenge","style":"width: 100px; height: 100px; margin: 5px; float: left;","class":"media-element file-default"}}]]Whilst travelling through Wales
Society member Alistair Phillips runs numerous coracle making courses each year at his workshop in Oxfordshire. He has shared these photos of a course he ran in June with us.
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An article on Malcolm Rees and his coracle making/fishing recently appeared on "We Made It", a series of articles following traditional crafts and the arts. To read the article, please click here
The work of the Ironbridge Coracle Trust has received national recognition in the form of this article, which appeared in The Times on 6 August 2015
Article and images are copyright Times Newspapers Ltd. This can be read online by clicking here (subscription required)
Dave Purvis was once again representing the Society at this year's Scottish Traditional Boat Festival in Portsoy. He was joined by Museum Assistant Heather Townsend from Elgin Museum, for whom we raised £350 at the Tay Descent last year towards the conservation and reinterpretation of their Spey currach, thought to be the oldest coracle in existence.
Heledd Wyn Hardy from University of South Wales came to St Fagans on 26th July to film the coracles, net fisherman and Jim Lilford from Tomos a Lilford Brewery (who brewed our special Cwrwgl ale). You can view her video below (some of this video is in Welsh)
On a wonderful summer's Saturday, the inaugural Welshpool coracle regatta took place at the Town Wharf. Coracles have been absent from Welshpool for some time, so this event was truly historic. Despite not being able to raise enough entries for the planned Macmillan coracle regatta in the morning, a brilliant day was had by all who attended.
We are delighted to report that today the Ironbridge Coracle Trust (registered charity 1161685) took posession of the Eustace Rogers hut on the bank of the river Severn in Ironbridge, a huge step forward for their campaign which of course The Coracle Society supported initially with our Save Our Heritage Huts appeal.
Following the death of Bernard Thomas last August, the new owners of his cottage came to see me at the museum during the Winter and gave me a cushion the found in one of the rooms. The cushion has writing on it and used by Bernard to sit on when he crossed the English Channel in his Teifi coracle in 1974.
Martin Fowler
During January and February, a Teifi coracle from the National coracle centre made by Peter Davies of Cenarth was on show at Selfridges department store in Oxford Street, London. An artist formerly from Pembrokeshire was one of fourteen people selected to create a display within the store.