Feàrna (Alder in Gaelic) is the name given to ongoing work in Mull aimed at improving understanding and finding connections between people of Gaelic heritage and people of other heritages living on the isle of Mull.
This website is a space to share some of the things we’ve been exploring thus far through Feàrna. It’s also a warm invitation to anyone else considering these questions – in Mull or further afield – to explore them with us.
(Text taken from their introduction to their website)
With more interpreters we can bring larger pieces of equipment and give larger groups of pupils a small group experience.
Requests for school visits are starting to come in! If you would like to be involved and haven’t seen the e-mails please get in touch.
We are continuing the Winter break from drop in “Making Space” evenings to take advantage of the opportunity raised by The Stove with “Phanto Spectra”. If you haven’t booked already check it out.
Of course, activated members have been active throughout the holidays! Making has continued and we have gauges for sizing oars. A ply rudder blade is roughly shaped and it will be ready for testing when the ice on the water melts. Just the fittings to forge!
Activated members also help keep a roof over the Cluaran club head! In 2026 Wordsmith Crafts CIC will need to focus on the “company” side of CIC a bit more. The community tends to run on goodwill and trade, but The Workshop roof is going to need replaced and due partly to complexities in the building materials this will cost cash. We now have three years of activity reports and this will hopefully provide a basis to develop the board of directors. The aim is to hold this in the first week in February!
Drop in Making space will return on the evening of Thursday the 22nd of January. Plan is to keep Thursday evenings clear for Cluaran until the 26th of March. Check the calendar to see if it will be a club drop in at the workshop, a night at the pub, or another adventure!
Free if it is your first time, £5 towards club overheads after that. These are not taught craft workshops – but get in touch if you are interested in one of those!
This Thursday, BASH at the riverside tap with Storytelling by Simon.
BASH are a collective who make improvised music which defies definition. They have been playing together for a while now, and occasionally have guests.
This Thursday (the 6th of November) they will be playing at the Riverside Tap in Dumfries. Simon Lidwell will be improvising some stories with them!
So this is the Cluaran event for the week. Ancient tales of the otherworld combining with music made in the moment. Autumnal poetry where semantics settle like leaves on the sound waves and decomposition warms the room, with the smell of rest surrounding the gathered company.
BASH with Simon storytelling 1900 onwards, the Riverside Tap, the Vennel, Dumfries – free gig!
Drop in with your own project. Share skills to try something new.
(Pay what you can/£5 contribution to the Cluaran club if you have the cash. Contributions in kind welcomed as well. Ask about Wordsmith Crafts Cluaran and Quartz memberships too!)
Keep the evening free for hands on access to heritage. In the run up to Christmas we will be gathering for a range of activities. More details of each evening will be posted here.
Making Space: Drop in with your own project. Share skills to try something new.
Storytelling:
In the workshop or a local pub
Boat maintenance: Many tasks needing done before the summer!
Or a community volunteering task.
We will post details of each evening here. We will start with a Making Space evening on the 30th of October. The last evening of this batch will be the 11th of December.
(Pay what you can/£5 contribution to the Cluaran club if you have the cash. Contributions in kind welcomed as well. Ask about Wordsmith Crafts Cluaran and Quartz memberships too!)
The international racing event called Skiffieworlds started on Saturday. An expeditionary party of cluaran connected people were there to see the opening ceremony.
With boats from the D&G coastline, accross Scotland Ireland, England, the Netherlands, the USA, and Austrailia it was properly international. One day, perhaps, there will be a Dumfries boat there too!
I’m in the workshop today doing some Cluaran maintenance in preparation for a row this evening.
While I’m doing that I’m thinking about this years Nithraid. Nithraid is a festival which helps people reconnect and reimagine their relationship with the river Nith.
A few years ago I made a video about toy boat building using household materials. Instead of flushing plastic away and forgetting about it, it can be re-imagined as a valuable resource. There are projects around the world doing this on a large scale. On a small scale, we could make the components needed to turn used containers into components for toy boats.
If you are interested, please get in touch!
We may be able to contribute to this years on the green Nithraid activities (24th of August).
Of course, if you would like to row get in touch too! We are practicing on the Nith (including this evening – the 3rd of July)
We live on an island. More accurately a collection of Islands. Even if you are not separated from the centres of urban population by a body of water, travelling by land is often the long way round.
So one of the range of activities WSC supports encourages familiarity with the water. At present it does this by collecting people and things together, and then suggesting opportunities. Perhaps it will become more formal, but at the moment that is where we are.
Here are some photos of evenings on the river Nith.
On Thursday the 3rd Simon is planning to take Cluaran out on the water again. It will be the usual procedure of mustering at the workshop at 6 , then launching according to the wind and the tide and the number of folk we have.
After the school visiting there is the unpacking, sorting, checking and repairs! It was great to be asked back to two schools from last year though.
Both teachers and pupils have been very complimentary about one of the activities we offer. In the “Settler to Sea King” game the pupils form groups on an island. They gradually explore the area and find resources to build their settlement. As they build the settlement they gain different ships, and eventually one island will be the first to aquire a dragonship and call themselves Jarls.
The game is based on archaological studies of the Nordrøy/Shetland/Orkney and has a trading game which links to it.
Looking for Vikings to visit your educational establishment? If you have the silver we will travel!
