Unique farm produces art and creativity as its harvest

Lifestyle –  Judy Murphy meets Sheila Flanagan the woman behind a novel concept nurturing new talent in a rural haven

Ireland is home to all types of farms – beef farms, dairy farms, tillage farms, stud farms, and mixed farms. But outside the village of Newbridge near Ballinasloe, there’s a unique farm that nurtures human creativity and conversation instead of plants and livestock.

A small, restored farmhouse with an outhouse studio and a hayshed are at the heart of the recently established Artfarm in Clonkeen.

It’s not an easy place to find, but any worries about being lost fade away when you spot a giant sculpture of a witch – or cailleach – made of hay that dominates the hayshed. She was made, using traditional skills such as sugán-making, for a project that took place in nearby Ballygar recently as part of the Galway 2020 Capital of Culture bid.

The owner of Artfarm, Sheila Flanagan, worked on that project and explains that in times past, a cailleach such as this one was symbol of good luck for the harvest season.

Sheila, who is originally from Bohermore in Galway City, moved the Newbridge-Ballygar area in 2005 and developed Artfarm in 2012. More than 40 artists have availed of its residency scheme since then, writers and musicians as well as visual artists. Most were Irish, but there have also been people from the UK and mainland Europe as well as America and Australia.

Sheila’s journey to Clonkeen and the creation of this unique farm began after she graduated in Fine Art from GMIT in 2003 as a mature student.

“Always handy at making”, she had wanted to study art since her teens, but back then, and for a long time after, she didn’t feel confident enough or good enough to go to art college.

So she took the scenic route. Sheila emigrated after leaving school, but then returned to Galway where she worked with Macnas Community Theatre group, one of many people who took part in the various FÁS schemes it operated. In Macnas, she learned practical skills while gaining first-hand experience about the importance of community arts.

Sheila then studied furniture-making at GMIT’s Letterfrack campus and along the way too, she did a welding course.

Those experiences were stepping stones towards her true ambition, which was to study fine art. Eventually, she went for it and succeeded.

“Going to GMIT was like a dream come true”, she recalls, adding that her early fears of not being good enough to call herself an artist had all been in her own head.

Sheila’s main focus in college was on sculpture and she wanted to live somewhere which would allow her to make large-scale pieces. After her graduation, she and one of her sisters went house-hunting in rural Galway and, while she’d always thought she’d settle by the sea, once Sheila saw the deserted farmhouse and its buildings, down the end of a narrow boreen, she was hooked. The primary hook was the hayshed, which was perfect for her metal sculptures.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.