Archive News
Skills from past provide a bright future for craft furniture maker
Date Published: {J}
It might seem like madness to be setting up a craft business in the middle of a recession, but Caimin Coyne has faith that his handmade furniture will find an audience.
Caimin, from Inishbofin and now living in Roscahill near Oughterard, learned his skills the old-fashioned way, from his father and his grandfather on Inishbofin. Both were boat builders and carpenters and it was through them that he first explored his talent for woodwork.
Now, he makes quality furniture that ranges from colourful slated bird houses and feeders, to hall tables, three-legged milking stools, children’s stools and súgán chairs and stools.
While many of the pieces Caimin makes are modern, the influence of tradition is obvious – for instance his súgán chairs were inspired by the chairs his parents received as a wedding present 41 years ago.
“I wanted to make a refined version, more sleek than traditional,” he says as he turns one of his creations over to show the detail in the work.
He has added his own element to the chairs by putting the rope on the back as well as on the seat, which isn’t usual. They are sleek, but also sturdy and comfortable, he explains, because he wants to create furniture that is pleasing and practical.
“If you can’t make a chair better then don’t make one at all. Function is vital. It has to be strong and it has to look well – something that is comfortable and that you don’t see every day.”
He also makes a variation on the súgán chairs, which he has called the Rusheen Chair for his Bofin home. Instead of rope, the seat and back are made from heavy cotton, with a range of colours and fabrics available on request.
Caimin’s route to artisan furniture making was an indirect one. After school he trained as an aircraft mechanic, qualifying in 1998. It was a job that took him all over the world and one that he loved, but it didn’t give him much outlet for his creativity. Then, after the attacks on America in September 2001, the bottom fell out of the airline industry, while Ireland’s construction industry was in lift off.
Caimin began to reassess his career and adopted a flexible approach to his work. When he got a contract for aircraft maintenance, he took it and went off travelling. When he didn’t, he focused on carpentry and building around Galway.
He built an apartment in town for a client, roofing it and
doing the internal fittings and staircase. He also created a beautiful spiral staircase which is now part of his signature work, he explains.
In late 2007 he saw the warning signs in the building industry. It was an area he had fallen into by accident and he felt it was time to focus on his dream of making his own bespoke furniture.
“I wanted to work from home and be able to work whatever the weather. And I didn’t want to spend hours driving around the city getting to and from work.”
Ideas for his pieces come to him at various times. “It might be before I go to sleep and if it’s a really good one I get up and put it on paper.”
Sometimes he’ll think of something when he’s driving west towards Cleggan for the boat journey home. He reckons it’s to do with the space he enters in his head, he explains.
Sometimes, too, people offer good advice.
For instance, a hall table made of ash and partially painted in muted pastels, with a cheery glass drawer knob, came about after a conversation with the owner of Whistlestop craft shop in Clifden.
The owner explained that customers were looking for narrow tables as halls in new houses were narrower than in older builds.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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