3-070-911 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Stern of fishing-boat, 1881. 'I, with much pretence of knowing my own business, wandered down to the water's edge and looked at the fishing-boats, with their strange build and gear (of which more at another time): on the stern of each was the legend bearing the name of the craft. I was puzzled to see that four out of every six bore the title of "St. Patrick," printed backwards, exactly after the manner of my Sketch. My only solution of it is this, that, like Charles Dickens's strong memory of seeing the words "Coffee-room" reversed upon the panel of the room where he performed his meagre boyish meal and read the legend "moor eeffoc," so some local genius of the Claddagh, having studied the name of the patron saint from the wrong side of the church window, had instituted the strange legend that may be seen on two thirds of the fishing- craft in Galway Bay'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.