A West Highland Galley

You would be forgiven for thinking I have started collecting Vikings for the new year but no we are remaining in the 16th century as this a West Highland galley. The ship is indeed converted from a Viking ship, this is the resin miniature used: https://www.barrageminiatures.com/boats/64-viking-ship-156-28mm.html. I have added the yard and the sail as well as the large stepped rudder at the stern, which was a particular feature of these galleys. Examples of such rudders can be seen in the two carvings depicting galleys shown below. The stern-rudder was scratch built using plasticard. You will have to imagine the oars and the oarsmen, adding them is beyond my current modelling abilities!

Using a Viking ship as the basis of the galley works well as these ships followed on from the Norse tradition. They were fast and manoeuvrable, perfect for navigating the lochs and the isles off the Scots and Irish coasts. Robert Gresh in his "'Of kerns and gallowglasses' Irish Armies of the 16th Century 1487-1587" describes the three main types of galley: 

"Hebridean galleys were of three types: the long-fhada, or longship, commonly called 'lymphad' in English; the birlinn (from Norse 'byrdingr' - a cargo ship); and the naibheag, or little ship. A government report of 1615 explained that a galley was a vessel of 18 to 24 oars, while a 'birling' was a vessel of 12 to 18 oars, and the number of men they could carry was estimated at three per oar. Thus the full complement of a long-fhada was 54 to 72 men, while the smaller birlinn carried 36 to 54 men."

From the description above my guess would be that this model would make a good birlinn.

This miniature will be great for scenarios based around James IV's attempts to subdue the highlands and Isles and for games involving my Gaelic Irish collection, as many of the Irish clans or septs also used galleys. Whilst on the subject of the Gaelic Irish at the end of last year I spent a couple of days hiking in the south west of Ireland with my brother and my friend Scott. We visited an Irish Tower House, Carrigaphooca Castle, built in the early 1400s and belonging to the McCarthy's of Muskerry (who featured in my Mourne Abbey game with Stuart: http://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2024/08/moin-na-mbrathar-1510-and-mourne-abbey.html). The owners of the farm where the Tower House is located were kind enough to give us the keys so we could have a look inside and climb up to the top. The final photo shows the Tower House, I thought it would fit well into this post but I don't know why I am making that strange face? Maybe I was overwhelmed by the history!

Happy New Year!

Carving of a galley from the tomb of Alasdair Crotach MacLeod, carved c.1528.

Carving of a West Highland galley from Kilmory Knap Chapel. Note the large rudder on the right of the image.

A West Highland galley.

The galley from the front.

A force of Western Islemen disembark from their galley.

A view of the galley from above.

28mm West Highland galley. The distinctive "stepped" rudder is scratch built.

An Irish Tower House - Carrigaphooca Castle, built in the early 15th century, County Cork, Ireland.