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The Irish
Woodland Village
 This
new feature at the Irish National Country Fair
in Ballinlough Castle Estate brings
together a collection of traditional
Irish crafts that are associated with
woodland life and management. While the
ancient Irish forests may have
disappeared centuries ago, the skills of
those who earned a living by using the
wood of those forests is alive and
vibrant in Ireland.
 The
organisers of the Irish National Country Fair have
brought together a remarkable group of
artisans, all of whom have a vested
interest in woodlands and the
traditional crafts of woodsmen.
The pole lathe is worked by the "Bodger"
who turns clothes pegs, made the
spindles for the chair and stools spoons for the kitchen. The
charcoal burner whose produce fires the
blacksmith's furnace and the smith
who mends the cartwheels and makes the
hoops for oak barrels.
There are
the hurdle makers, their panels
used in house building and for crossing
bog land or fording rivers in ancient
times giving us the Celtic name for
Dublin "Ath Cliath" the ford of hurdles.
 See
the hedge layers who maintain the
field boundaries at the end of the
winter. And the coppersmith whose skills
are needed for making vessels, fixings
and even Celtic jewellery. There too,
the basket makers who weave the wicker
baskets so familiar on the fireplace
filled with logs or turf.
Not forgetting, of course, the
thatchers who cover the artisan's houses
and their wood stores or "hovels" with
straw from the fields or rushes and
reeds from along the lough shore.
This is a truly amazing step into our
history made real by craftspeople who
still ply these ancient trades.
Something for all the family to enjoy,
participate in and talk about for months
to come!
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