From Cork to Donegal, by boat

In his latest TG4 series, boat enthusiast Pádraig Ó Duinnín concludes a fascinating journey over land and sea, says Richard Fitzpatrick.

THE sixth and final series of Muintir na Mara will start broadcasting on TG4 on Sunday night. It ends a fascinating five-year journey over sea and land for its presenter, Pádraig Ó Duinnín. He has teased some wonderful stories out of fishermen, boat-builders, weavers, musicians, woodcarvers and oyster farmers, among others, who live from, in his words, “the riches of the sea”.

Ó Duinnín owes his grá for the water, he says, to a number of factors. “I grew up near Macroom in Cork, but we’ve a lake on the river Lee at the bottom of the field. That was a good bit of it. When I was young, I went back to west Kerry to Corca Dhuibhne. That kind of exposed me to naomhógs. Reading, you know, Huckleberry Finn and Horatio Hornblower and all kinds of sea adventure stories as a young fella. That went in somewhere as well.”