Business Post Magazine

Meet the people bringing the craft of instrument making into the modern era

There are superb craftspeople all over the country turning out everything from bodhráns and tin whistles to banjos and cellos and there are courses and programmes available that teach the necessary skills

Paraic McNeela, bodhrán maker, ‘has always been about accessibility,’ says his son Lorcan, who now works with him. ‘Paraic has always tried to make sure everyone can have a chance to play something’

Between 1978 and 1989, documentary makers David and Sally Shaw travelled around Ireland filming the 37-episode series Hands – a visual record of Irish craftspeople at the turn of the 20th century. For the Shaws, this work was an exercise in preservation, by “capturing on film the final years of traditional life in rural and urban Ireland”.

The archive was viewed as a time capsule for many dying handcrafts. Four decades on, the tradition of ...