Tight-knit team of crafters recreate Galway’s Long Walk

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – The Long Walk overlooking the Claddagh has long inspired photographers and painters . . . and now a group of craftswomen from the Westside who have captured the Corribside vista in a 3D wool creation!

Measuring 15 foot long and 2 foot wide, the 17 houses represented were knitted separately then pulled down over cardboard before the wool roof, chimneys, skylights and doors were added. They were then velcroed together for display.

Sadly, the impressive creation never fulfilled its purpose of being exhibited as part of Galway 2020, explains Bernie Smith, who was one of the founders of the Westside Craft Group in 2004.

“We wanted to do something for 2020 and were knocking ideas around two years ago. We originally thought about the Spanish Arch but there wouldn’t have been enough in it for everyone to get involved so we turned to the Long Walk. One of our women had lived down there,” she says.

“I had started to paint it six or seven years ago – I still haven’t finished it. So I had five photos of it which we stuck together and then we each picked a house or two to do.”

The hardest part of the project was in the planning. They wanted something that would stand on its own, but could be stored flat and small.

(Photo: Gloria McGuigan and Bernie Smith with the Long Walk crochet in the Westside Resource Centre).
This is a shortened preview version of this article. To read the rest of the story and formore photos, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.