Global TV fame beckons for Galway’s mighty swordsman

The pen is mightier than the sword, they say, but whoever came up with that phrase obviously hadn’t met Mike Craughwell and his giant weapons!

City man Mike’s penchant for making enormous metal swords has catapulted the Renmore man into the limelight of reality TV in America.

The 32-year-old, a GMIT graduate based in Martha’s Vineyard, an island in Massachusetts, is the star of a new hit reality series on Discovery Chanel USA.

The first episode aired Stateside this week and the six part series is due to be screened in Ireland and UK later this year.

It was probably inevitable that he would feature in the show, Big Giant Swords, because as the blurb for the programme goes, “when it comes to making gigantic swords, no one makes them bigger and badder” than bearded Mike, who looks the part.

Mike, a former Bish student, son of Bernadette Craughwell and Christy Craughwell, grew up in Fuchsia Drive with his younger brother Christian in the 1980s.

He readily admits to being ‘nerdy’ and the fantasy video games and science fiction movies of that decade inspired his later career choice in weapon making.

Mike completed a degree in art and design at GMIT Cluain Mhuire before working for local metal companies including Rynn Engineering. He also worked for Macnas, the renowned local art group.

He emigrated to the Massachusetts five years ago and slowly gained a reputation for making enormous weaponry.

Staying true to his nerdy roots and combining his engineering skills, Mike set about making replica weapons.

He has been designing life-sized replicas of weapons inspired by video games and 1980s fantasy sci-fi movies for years. He was launched into the spotlight after he was commissioned to make a life-sized, ornamental replica of a sword from Final Fantasy 7.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.