The School benefits from Limerick Regeneration Agencies' assistance with its revenue ...
Coming Soon
In the American Spotlight
Nearly three years after its launch, Munster’s acclaimed School of wooden boat building has moved to a larger workshop in the Limerick Economic Development Partnership (LEDP) complex on the south side of the city. Measuring 2,000 square metres, the new location will ensure that this successful and innovative model of education, based on building boats in contemporary and traditional ways, will continue to expand its work with young people from the different communities of Limerick.
AN IRISH ADVENTURE IN EDUCATION AND MARITIME HERITAGE
Come and work with some of Ireland’s few remaining traditional shipwrights refitting Ireland’s sole surviving sea–going sailing ship.
Reviving and teaching the practical and transferable traditional skills of wooden boatbuilding to young people.
The A.K. Ilen Company is a not for profit Irish company dedicated to education through the medium of wooden boatbuilding and sailing on the sea. It is recognised by the Revenue Commissioners of Ireland as a charity (CHY 13607). In 2009, we established a School in Limerick city which welcomes young people and old. Our participants learn to work together – in the medium of wood, using traditional methods, and recreating the sailing boats which used to be familiar sights in waters everywhere. This achieves mutual respect, a sense of responsibility and an awareness of heritage.
Our programme also opens young minds to other traditions and perspectives. We have recovered a traditional wooden sailing vessel from the Falkland Islands where she worked for nearly 70 years and have incorporated her in our workshop training. We plan to use that experience to link digitally with other restoration projects – and to include young people from different locations wherever these boats once sailed. We intend also creating opportunities for young people who are not able to participate in School workshops to bring their creative efforts to bear upon the intricacies of traditional wooden boat skills.
And, then, we shall take our boats to sea and sail them back – to the people who have participated and to the places where once they graced the waterways of the world. We are already preparing to provide sail training in Ireland, in order to facilitate a coherent pathway from wood-working to sea.
This pathway leads not just to traditional skills but also to individual resourcefulness, resilience and reliability. Our participants are flexible, talented and employable. Our adventure began three years ago. Theirs is just starting.
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