Nicholas Grainger picks up the story...John Barry, instigator and participant in the curragh voyage, was my uncle, (and was always known as Jack). I grew up with my mother’s stories of his youthful derring-do.

The curragh voyage seemed entirely in character. But at the time I was 13 and living in England. Too young and too far away to be involved.  

From a distance I followed this grand adventure with envy. Then I read all about it in his book, Joyful Pilgrimage, and the enormous fun of it all came to life.

Something of the challenge and excitement of such an adventure lodged in my brain. Ten years later, I sailed away myself with my then-wife Julie aboard a small Scottish fishing boat, The Aegre, off on an adventure that would take us across the Atlantic and much of the Pacific. Jack now following the story of our voyage over every wave.

Jack frequently entreated me to write the whole story of The Aegre voyage, but sadly he didn’t live to see it, dying in 2006, seven years before the story The Voyage of The Aegre, was published.

My uncle went to sea in a boat with a calico skin… is the opening sentence of the story of The Voyage of The Aegre.

Feeling both a debt to Jack and a desire to share his story and something of the inspiration of St Columba, I got together with my Aegre book publishing colleagues, Gene Carl Feldman in Washington and David Burnett in Ludlow, to explore publishing a facsimile edition of Jack’s 1964 book. Jack’s eldest son Jonathan (16 at the time of the voyage) living in Belfast, gave his support and we got to work.

Published in late October 2025, Joyful Pilgrimage – In the wake of St. Columba by John Barry, is a facsimile edition of the 1964 book, enlarged and with a retrospective Preface by John Barry’s son, Jonathan.

This facsimile edition is available from bookshops in the UK and online, together with the eBook edition.

.But the spirit of the curragh voyage wasn’t finished with us yet. In 2026 we created an audiobook edition, narrated by one of the crew from 1963.

Next: Creating an audiobook version of Joyful Pilgrimage: In the wake of St Columba