A ring of rope with up to thirty ballan wrasse strung up through their mouths on it. A way of carrying the day’s catch home.

A dangerous, soft, sticky mud on the shore that can swallow you up. You can walk out on it, but you can't walk back. It has killed people.

A wild, unkempt woman, a term used by Galway city folk to describe Connamara people, & by Norwegians to describe their island folk. Why do we share the same word?

A 3-bladed knife on a 16ft long pole, used in conjunction with the pike for gathering kelp. Neither has been used for 80 years, but their memory lives on.

A fishing-ground, a deep area where the wrasse would gather under the kelp. The old folk knew the best bráití and if a boat was fishing one, others would move to a different one.

A hole where a lobster hides in the outer shore, only accessible as very low tides. You drop a lobster pot beside it and chances or the lobster will go in. A new lobster will then take up residence in the hole.

A description of choppy sea, literally means a white covering on the fisherman's garden.

A hook made of willow onto which you would pin the fish bait in a pot or a net. Later a nail was used as it was thought to ward off eels.

Cearc is a hen, which fishermen believed could ward off danger in a boat.

A smaller cork tied on a ropa rua (old type of rope to the buoy line. The buoys were either iron or glass from France and Japan that had washed ashore.

A smaller species of lobster found under stones. It's not eaten by humans.

Knotted wrack seaweed that comes ashore in sheltered bays. When it's at sea it's called Feamainn Buí. It was used as fertiliser.
If there is kelp in the mix then it is called 'feamainn dearg', which is found on exposed shores.

Name of rocks off Cul a' Thoirr, because, when the tide is out, the rocks look like cocks of hay, and iothlan means a haggard, where the hay would be stored in a dry yard beside the house.

Stacked flagstones on the shore used long ago to support a boat while loading it with seaweed. Also graves, memorial mounds and paving.

A small rainbow sticking up from the sea to the northwest in the morning. Boatmen regarded it as a sign of harsh, windy weather that could last for weeks.

A breaking wave. Each had a name: Maidhm an Towell. An Boilg. Maidhm a' Bhoird. Maidhm Leac Dhearg. Muc Gainnimh. And Maidh Dhireáin.

Extreme low tides in which the entire strand dries up around the time of the equinoxes.

Fishermen's lore and superstition that is being lost

Weather conditions one can predict from the seagull washing itself, the shag pointing in a direction and the dolphins early in the year.

The methods and practise surrounding salting fish.

Various words for different tides

Flateen, galley, hooker, currach, bád iomradh, gleoiteog, púcán, leath-bhád, navvie, punt