In order to trace the links between the wooden fishing boats of the Ulster coast and those of the Great Lakes, I shall first examine the origins, development, and distinguishing features of the ‘Drontheim’ on the northern Irish coast, and then look at the historical evidence for the transmission of this form to the Great Lakes. I shall then consider to what extent Great Lakes boats maintained the features of the ‘Drontheim’ and in what ways they differed, and why.

MacPolin describes the distinctive features of the Drontheim:

Clinker’ building is generally referred to as ‘lapstrake’ in North America. MacPolin notes that sizes varied according to local conditions: they could be as small as 20 ft. or as large as 28 ft, but the most common sizes were 22 ft on the north-east coast, and 26 ft. on the more exposed north-west. The upper size limit was determined by the fact that the boats frequently had to be beached, and the 28 ft boats were difficult to drag ashore (ibid. p17).

Another important feature was that “the Drontheim had a sharp, narrow bow and stern. Stem and sternposts usually showed a slight curve and rake, and the ‘heel was usually rounded, although the fishermen of the Scottish island of Islay preferred a straight-heel sternpost (ibid. p103). Other distinctive features were the ‘sandstroke’, a unique method of joining the planking (strakes) to the keel using the minimum of timber, and the ‘wearing’ or ‘bearer’, a length of timber running the length of the boat beneath the beams to add strength.

According to MacPolin:

MacDonald is a name that has cropped up whilst researching these craft in both Ulster and the Great Lakes. The Vikings maintained a considerable presence in Ulster; both at the River Bann, with a fleet on Lough Neagh, and in Donegal, which took its name from them (Dun na Gall – Fort of the Foreigners). There is evidence of the use of galleys into the 17th century, so there was probably continuity in clinker-building techniques. Evidence for the Scandinavian origins of these craft is the names given to them:

Whilst the clinker building techniques may go back to Viking times, this does not explain why a new and distinctive type of clinker-built craft appeared in the north of Ireland in the early 19th century. The name supplies a clue here too. Drontheim, Dronton, Drunton or Drumtin, as it has been variously pronounced and written, is a colloquial form of the Norwegian port ‘Trondheim’, from which timber ships put into the port of Londonderry:

As Ireland’s timber resources became depleted by the middle of the 18th century, Norway became the main supplier of timber from its ports of Trondheim and Kristiansund in the north, and Bergen and Kristiansand in the south. With this trade a second colonisation of Scandinavian boats occurred. Along with timber and ice, trading vessels from Norway brought small clinker-built boats. These Norway yawls were carried as supplementary deck cargo (MacPolin 1999 p6).

MacPolin notes the similarities and differences in the hull construction of the Alfjord Faering and the Drontheim:

The drontheim is obviously a much less flexible and ‘stiffer’ boat due to it extra frames, wearing, and gunwale, but when one looks at an Alfjord faering one’s eye one’s eye finds a shape that remembers the lines and shape of a drontheim
(ibid. p12).

MacPolin also compares the Drontheim to the Shetland Fourern, also so called in view of its four oars, noting that the Shetlanders had to import their timber from Norway, and their boats thus remained closer to the Norwegians in construction, using wide strakes with few frames, and flared, overhanging bows. The Fourerns were sailed with a lugsail, like the Alfjord Faering, but unlike the Drontheim.

The Irish builders developed the type in a way different from that of the Shetlanders and built the boats up a couple of strakes on either side. The Skerries yawl has more and narrower planks and considerably less sheer than the Fourern. Her keel is longer in relation to overall length. (“Open Boats of the British Coast” 1937 cited MacPolin 1999 p9).

The narrower planking of the Drontheim may be put down to the availability of resources. The hull shape also helped in this regard:

The ‘finer’ bow or stern could be planked from narrow flitches of timber (a flitch is a plank cut from the full width available from the tree), an important advantage when timber was scarce or trees were of small circumference….A finer more efficient bow meant less wood as well (MacPolin 1999 p9).

In terms of efficiency, the advantage of the sharper and straighter bow was that:

A straight stem meant less reserve buoyancy in the bow and the boat sliced more smoothly into the waves…As Bertie McKay, a fisherman of Portbradden, Co. Antrim so eloquently put it: “They didn’t bang, bang into the waves but slid over them…like going into a basin of cream!” (quoted MacPolin 1999 pp9-10).

Likewise, the sharp stern was an advantage when beaching a boat with a following sea:

After a followin’ sea it went past it. If it was a transom stern a sea could hit it and push her on. You couldn’t steer and would have broached her. (Sammy Wilkinson quoted MacPolin 1999 p86).

The fine end splits the sea. You could still control them. The transom stern can be a problem unless you have some kind of decent shelter (Bertie McKay quoted MacPolin 1999 p86).

Why, then, was such a design not adopted by the fishermen of Shetland? Perhaps because they were operating in less sheltered waters: there could be dangers in a fine bow, as Rathlin fisherman John Hegarty pointed out when viewing a new Drontheim with a particularly fine bow:

If you were runnin’ before a brave breeze and stemmin’ (going against) the tide, I’m afraid you’d lose her. The too fine bow would put the head down… (MacPolin 1999 p33).

In recent years a County Sligo Drontheim was lost in similar circumstances.

Another interesting comparison that can be made is with the Sgoth Niseach (Ness Skiff) of the Hebrides, which has a similar heritage. The island of Lewis got its timber from the Scottish mainland (Le Floch 1998), and the boats were built of narrow planks as in Ulster. The design, however, retained the flared and raked bow and stern, and the lugsail, resembling the Fourern in appearance.

The fact that all these craft belong to the same Scandinavian family is clear. The differences between them become significant when we consider whether the Scandinavian features seen on Great Lakes fish boats are of direct Norwegian origin, or whether they were mediated by the Ulster experience.

The Drontheim was the standard fishing boat of the northern Irish coast from County Antrim to Donegal, and as far south as Sligo in the west. South of Sligo, older Carvel designs such as the Hooker or Wherry remained dominant. In the east, Yawls similar to the Drontheim were found in County Down – these were generally smaller and used lugsails. They were part of an ‘Irish Sea’ cultural network that spanned influences from the Isle of Man and as far south as Cornwall (Evans 1967), but was somewhat separated from the ‘Atlantic zone’ of the north and north-west coast. South of County Down on the east coast, carvel built boats were again the norm. The Drontheim was also used on the Scottish islands of Islay and Colonsay (MacPolin 1999 p18), and the Mull of Kintyre in Argyll (Martin on-line), being imported from builders in Portrush, County Antrim.

Drontheims varied according to local conditions and preferences, not only in size but also in rig:

Ballycastle, County Antrim, and Rathlin Island, which were the some of the closest north coast ports to the Irish Sea sometimes used lugsails like the County Down boats. Ballintoy, a little further west favoured Gaff sails. These were often used by boats from various areas for racing in regattas, which was taken very seriously. Bowsprits were also added for racing. It is worth remembering that all these rigs were used, often interchangeably according to the weather, in the Irish boats, when we consider the rigs used on the Great Lakes.

There was also some variation in hull shape. In the Donegal Bay fishery:

Use of ring nets for salmon, mackerel and sprat required a yawl with…a high bow and stern with ‘a spring to the sheer’…Hauling the ring net at sea required the yawl to lay over on her side (MacPolin 1999 p55).

This type of Drontheim was described by Donegal Bay fisherman George Gallagher as “A boat with a gurnard head and a mackerel tail”. This is a phrase we shall encounter again on the other side of the Atlantic.