The Camino Voyage, a full length feature film by Dónal Ó Céilleachair (pronounced O’Kelleher) of Anú Pictures, left us wishing it wouldn’t end. We saw it in a special screening as part of the Celtic Camino Festival in Westport, County Mayo. The theatre was packed with Celtic Camino Society members from many countries, including visitors from as far away as Vancouver Canada, the US, Holland, Spain, UK and all over Ireland.
The movie is about a crew – including a writer, two musicians, an artist and a stonemason – who embark on a Camino expedition not by land but by sea in a traditional boat they built themselves. Their naomhóg, a wood-framed canvas covered boat, carried them 2,500 miles in three six-week long stages over three summers across the Irish Sea and the English Channel, along the coasts of France and Northern Spain and canals inland to Santiago de Compostella. They rowed and sailed the entire way, until they reached the last stage. They transported the naomhóg by car to Santiago, then carried her to the entrance of the Cathedral. It was an epic and inspiring journey, often dangerous and always gruelling.
The Camino (the Way) is the name of any of the pilgrimage routes to the shrine of the apostle St. James (Santiago in Spanish) in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in Northern Spain. The route they took was once called the Camino Inglés, one of the sea routes. It traditionally started in A Coruña or Ferrol to which pilgrims arrived by boat from Great Britain and Ireland. But the north coast of Spain was deemed too dangerous for the small vessel.
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