logo
Native sheep farmer, designers, and U2 bassist to headline at Fashion & Farming Festival

Native sheep farmer, designers, and U2 bassist to headline at Fashion & Farming Festival

Irish Examiner28-04-2025

We're all well aware of cheap clothing that has originated in places many of us have never set foot in. And we're not going to solve the fast fashion and synthetic fibres issues in a day. But when you or a visitor to this country buys a wool sweater or tweed garment that comes with labels proudly declaring them to be 'pure Irish' or 'crafted in Éire' we might expect the yarn to come from the tufty sheep that skittered away from our car as we drove by a few minutes ago.
But the wool from sheep here has been shipped off this island as a CAT 3 waste product and the wool throws, classy tweed scarves, and luxurious-feeling carpets touted as 'Irish' are actually most likely made from imported yarn.
The Irish sheep that feature on posters, ornaments, mugs and more may well enjoy fresh air and a free-range life but ones that are intensively reared overseas for the wool used here may actually live in farming systems that are less sustainable and less ethical.
Sounds like something has gotten mixed up somewhere.
And it was disconnect between raw materials, prices, sustainability and integrity that drove Blátnaid Gallagher to set up the Galway Wool Co-op.
CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB
She wants to speak up for wool growers who are looking after our native Irish rare breed — the Galway. The Galway doesn't mean it's a breed of sheep from Galway, it's a native Irish breed that happens to be called Galway, just like merino is a breed of sheep and a place in Spain.
Galway Wool is a strong white bio-fibre suitable as a base material for an array of home interiors and lifestyle products. Picture: David Ruffles
"These white-faced lowland sheep are our native sheep — they are so fluffy and gentle, they are a gorgeous animal. They don't just go for sweet grass either, they clean up weeds like nettles and dock and the farmers who shepherd them here are passionate about their welfare. We have one of the highest standard of animal welfare in the world and people can be fined or jailed for mistreating animals. These sheep here are not raised in industrial-scale farms," explains Blátnaid.
The Galway Wool Co-op works to achieve fair trade farm gate prices for the wool as well as a consistent route to market for the yarn and "before the Co-op was founded our glorious Galway wool was haemorrhaging out of the country as a waste product," she notes.
Blatnaid and Niall Gallagher, farmers of Galway Sheep, Aughrim, County Galway. Picture: David Ruffles
And not alone are farmers here watching wool being 'dumped' but then we have "Irish designers, mills, retailers, tweed, and garment manufacturers working with imported wool from factory-sized wool growing units in the southern hemisphere... where's the sustainability in that?"
While Ireland has a weaving history going back thousands of years — a fragment of cloth, with a 'broken twill weave', dating to 700BC was found in a bog in Armoy, County Antrim in 1904 — the industry suffered significant setbacks from various sources. While Ireland had been exporting products to Britain and beyond, a new law was passed in England in 1699 "for the further encouragement of the woollen manufacturers of England" and this prevented Ireland exporting woollen products to England. The mass starvation of the Famine also negatively impacted Ireland's handwoven culture.
Worsted spinning is a technique that produce smooth yarn in which the fibres lie parallel. The decline of the spinning industry here means that weavers and crafters have had to buy in spun wool from overseas: "The lack of worsted spinning in Ireland is a critical yet often overlooked issue in reviving native Irish wool for modern contemporary knitwear design and fashion. Worsted spinning could significantly enhance the durability, smoothness, and overall wearability of Irish wool, making it more appealing for contemporary design. It would be great if there was an appetite within the industry to reinvest in worsted spinning."
Blatnaid Gallagher: "Sadly, in the early 20th century the introduction of faster meat producing breeds meant 'The Galway' almost became extinct were it not for the gallant effort of the Galway Sheep Breeders Association."
Blátnaid is one of the key speakers the upcoming inaugural Fashion & Farming Festival, which aims to weave together experiences, projects and stories that might lead to a brighter future for our planet. She'll be joined by guests including actors Sinéad Cusack and Jeremy Irons and by U2 bassist Adam Clayton. Alongside his music work Clayton is also committed to organic and regenerative growing, exploring how the work we do now can help to reverse what has been done.
As part of the campaign to promote native Irish wool, Blátnaid is proud to show off gorgeous garments and striking art crafted with this wool. They include sweaters made by Cork hand knitter Jean Long and blankets designed by artist Ellie Dunne.
Jean Long has worked on commissions for private individuals, the Galway Artisan Collective, and Conor O'Brien Design.
Ellie Dunne has chosen to work with Native Irish Galway wool sourced from The Galway Wool Co-op as her primary medium.
Ellie Dunne is 25 and has Down Syndrome. She's currently studying painting and drawing at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin and designs wool blankets . Her latest blanket is a collaboration with the Galway Wool Co-op woven by Molloy & Sons in Ardara, County Donegal. Picture: Naoise Culhane Photography
The inaugural Fashion & Farming Festival takes place in Kinsale, Cork from May 10-11. Explore the connection between what we wear and the earth we share: three days of talks, performances and food, as farmers, designers, sowers and growers come together fashionandfarming.com
The Festival is the brainchild of Mareta Doyle, who founded the award-winning international Kinsale Arts Festival — she aims present an event that might just change the world we wear: 'Once inextricably linked, fashion and farming are part of our domestic and social fabric, but how we farm and how we create fashion are killing us in today's world. We believe it's time to make it, better. The Fashion & Farming Festival aims to help unify the two worlds of fashion and farming to explore ideas on how to farm sustainably, create new fabrics and learn new things from older ways of making. Looking at what we eat, wear and the earth we share, we invite you to join us for a weekend of conversation, provocation, good food, great ideas and intriguing fun in the West Cork coastal town of Kinsale, where fresh ideas take root."
Tickets: eventbrite.ie/e/fashion-farming-tickets-1200401275529
FACEBOOK: @fashion.and.farming
INSTAGRAM: @fashion.and.farming
Speakers at the inaugural Fashion & Farming Festival include:
Adam Clayton
Bass guitarist with U2. The band's 15 studio albums have amassed sales in excess of 175 million, and their awards include 22 Grammys, two Golden Globes, and the Amnesty International, Ambassador of Conscience Award.
Bay Garnett
The queen of 'thrifting' and the first stylist to use only vintage on Kate Moss in what has now become an iconic fashion story. Bay has been the leader in sustainable fashion for decades and is senior fashion advisor for Oxfam, having worked with them since 2017. She curated he first luxury pop up with Oxfam alongside Gucci and Prada; the first charity shop in a department store (at Selfridges); the first fashion show using only second-hand items donated by Oxfam and the first Second Hand September campaign starring Stella Tennant and most recently Sienna Miller.
Darina Allen
Synonymous in Ireland with the famous Ballymaloe Cookery School, Co Cork, which she co-founded in 1983 — Darina is a passionate advocate of sustainability in farming and growing.
Tim Smit
Tim is co-founder of the award-winning Eden Project near St Austell in Cornwall. Eden began as a dream in 1995 and opened its doors to the public in 2000, since when more than 19 million people have come to see what was once a sterile pit turned into a cradle of life containing world-class horticulture.
Carry Somers
Internationally renowned for her transformative impact on the fashion industry, Carry Somers, founder of Fashion Revolution, is a visionary changemaker, fashion designer, social entrepreneur, and campaigner. She also founded the award-winning Fair Trade brand Pachacuti, and co-founded the League of Artisans, a non-profit championing artisanal skills as a vital response to global challenges.
Coco Baraer Panazza
Coco is a French entrepreneur based in London. As CEO of MYWARDROBE HQ (MWHQ), Coco overseas an organisation dedicated to inspiring people to embrace the circular economy through luxury fashion rental and resale.
Lilian Gleave
Lilian is a first-year medical student at University College Cork, and a dedicated advocate for positive change. Lilian won an award at BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in 2022 for her project: "To investigate the world of fast fashion and how to incentivize mending clothes instead of discarding them."
Brigid Barry
Farming for Nature, managed by Brigid Barry, is a non-profit initiative whose mission is to support, encourage and inspire farmers who farm, or who wish to farm, in a way that will improve the natural health of our countryside. Brigid comes from a suckler and tillage farm in Cork. Her most recent publication, The Farming for Nature Handbook, co-authored with Dr Emma Hart and Brendan Dunford, presents an extensive guide to working in ways that support the land for growers, gardeners and farmers everywhere.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Exhibition marks 400th anniversary of St Oliver Plunkett's birth
Exhibition marks 400th anniversary of St Oliver Plunkett's birth

RTÉ News​

timean hour ago

  • RTÉ News​

Exhibition marks 400th anniversary of St Oliver Plunkett's birth

The official launch of an exhibition to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the birth of St Oliver Plunkett will take place in Drogheda, Co Louth today. The exhibition will include a number of artefacts and memorabilia associated with the iconic saint that have never previously been on public display. St Oliver Plunkett was born in Loughcrew in Co Meath on 1 November 1625 and was ordained to the priesthood in Rome in 1654, having studied at the Irish College in the city. He later became the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland and maintained his duties in the face of the Penal Laws when the Catholic Church was being suppressed. St Oliver Plunkett was eventually arrested and tried for treason in London. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn on 1 July 1681. His head was rescued by a group of his friends and eventually made its way to St Peter's Church in Drogheda, where it remains today in a specially made shrine. A series of events is taking place in the town this year to mark 400 years since St Oliver Plunkett's birth, and also the 50 years since his can canonisation in 1975, when he became the first newly-made Irish saint for almost 700 years. The official launch of the St Oliver 400 Commemorative Exhibition will take place at the Drogheda Civic Offices on Fair Street. The exhibition will include St Oliver's Crozier loaned from a private collection, the original ebony casing which housed the saint's head and an original coffin plate from the Monastery of St Catherine of Siena in Drogheda. Other items going on public display are three silver crucifixes attributed to the saint and vestments loaned from St Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh and Mullingar Museum. The exhibition also includes a large collection of banners, books, coins and a written account of the then archbishop's trial in London in 1681. Co-chair of the Saint Oliver 400 Community Group, Tommy Burns said: "It is fitting that St Oliver who reformed the clergy, built schools, brought peace and hope to the people is still so fondly remembered in Ireland, and exemplified in this important exhibition in Drogheda, 400 years after his birth." Meanwhile, local historian Séamus Bellew, who specialises in heraldry and genealogy, said: "This exhibition brings together a rare collection of items, comprising books, brasses and the reliquary that housed St Oliver's head, all from the 17th century and much more besides...a must see." Thomas McEvoy, Deputy Chief Executive of Louth County Council, said it is important to commemorate the life of St Oliver as his story is one of "resilience and integrity during some of the most turbulent periods in our history." Mr McEvoy said: "His unwavering commitment to peace, reconciliation, and education serves as a timeless example for us all and the Saint Oliver 400 Exhibition brings this legacy to life in a new and powerful way. "On behalf of Louth County Council, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the Saint Oliver 400 Community Group who have organised this exhibition here in our Civic Offices in the heart of Drogheda." The exhibition runs at 'The Exhibition Space' at Drogheda Civic Offices on weekdays until 4 July.

Dealing with death: How the Pet Shop Boys and a beach in Lahinch saved me
Dealing with death: How the Pet Shop Boys and a beach in Lahinch saved me

Irish Times

time4 hours ago

  • Irish Times

Dealing with death: How the Pet Shop Boys and a beach in Lahinch saved me

The candle flickered in the lantern in the window, lit every night since David had started sleeping in the sitting room. Eight months since he hadn't been able to climb the stairs to bed. Sixteen months since the second surgery to remove the tumour growing in his brain. Twenty months since he got the news he only had 12 more to live. Because David was too full of life to leave it easily. The mattress pump hissed as it rose and fell in the early morning quiet. 'Can you open the door please,' said David. READ MORE I looked around, puzzled. There was no door. The sitting room opened into the dining room, where we'd often gathered for raucous dinner parties with David and his husband Jonathan, me, Sally, Paula and Craig. Now we took it in turns to sit with David on the Marie Curie nurses' nights off. I reached for the plastic beaker of juice, thick with the chunky powder that helped him swallow. 'Have a drink,' I said, guiding his lips to the straw, thinking about other nights we'd spent drinking through straws. Galway in the '90s, glugging flagons of cider through straws in Seamus Quirke Road before hitting the dance floor in The Castle, strobe lights flashing, the whites of our fake Converse glowing in the dark. 'Open the door,' David said again. I held his hand. 'Sleep now David. I'll stay with you.' But he continued to ask me to open the door and eventually, as dawn crept in through the window and the candle in the lantern flickered out, I said: 'The door is open, David.' And he squeezed my hand. A week later, David went through the door. I was in my mother's house in Sligo when Jonathan texted me to say David was fading. I lit a candle for him then, a candle with three wicks that could burn for days if it had to. In the end, it burned for three hours. Craig phoned me at 4pm. 'Have you got somebody with you?' he asked when I answered the phone, but I couldn't bring myself to ask if David was gone because, even then, I was still hoping he wasn't. Maybe Craig had just called for a chat. Or with an update. Or by accident. That night I raised a glass to David and played all our favourite songs. The Blue Nile's A Walk Across the Rooftops, Rosie Vela's Magic Smile, the songs we'd first bonded over at college in Galway, when I knew I'd found a kindred spirit. I cried listening to Mel and Kim's Respectable, remembering how sad we were when Mel died. I had a little dance by myself to Belinda Carlisle's Mad About You, a much overlooked and under-appreciated classic we'd agreed sagely at the wise old age of 18. And in the opening seconds of Pet Shop Boys' West End Girls, the clip-clop of high heels on slick wet pavements, the slush of traffic through rain, I was right back there again. The fading light of evening at the start of a new term, streetlights coming on in the dusk. We know that music is linked to our personal stories — Catherine Loveday The magic of Galway swirled around me, everything was new, unfamiliar and exciting as we took those first tentative steps into adulthood, poised at the start of life's great adventure. The power of music to instantly return us to the past is mind-blowing. 'I was walking through the Christmas markets in Dublin a few years ago, engrossed in conversation with my husband, when a piece of music came on and I suddenly had tears rolling down my cheeks,' says neuropsychologist Catherine Loveday. 'It was my dad's favourite Christmas song, When A Child Is Born by Johnny Mathis, and it completely took me back to my childhood Christmases. I was eight years old again.' Loveday, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Westminster and author of The Secret World of the Brain, believes music taps into our brain's innate system for responding to emotions. Bernadette Fallon and her late friend David Moclair 'We know that music is linked to our personal stories,' she explains. 'Research shows that music becomes linked to our memories – the brain cell networks become actively connected with each other so that one will trigger the other. The representation of the music becomes physically paired with the representation of our remembered experience.' I know what she means. I hear Echo Beach and I'm on a heaving dance floor in The Warwick on a sweaty Thursday night. The Beat(en) Generation sends me back to the white-tiled kitchen in Grattan Park that David used to call the abattoir; Pet Shop Boys' Always on my Mind to a tiny two-bed flat on New Road, the lights of David's HiFi system flashing like we were on a spaceship. So it's clear that music has a big impact on our brains and memories, but what's the impact of grief on the brain? I asked Henry Marsh, neurosurgeon and author. He's also the man who gave me back my life after he removed a tumour growing under my brain more than 20 years ago. Grief is a whole-person experience. It impacts us physically, emotionally, cognitively, socially, financially — Niamh Fitzpatrick 'Everything you are thinking and feeling at the moment is the physical process in your brain from the neuroscientific point of view. So clearly, any trauma, any grief, will have an impact on it,' he says. 'Within a year, or even less, of losing a spouse, people over the age of 60 have a hugely increased risk of dying. That is a direct physiological response to a mental state. 'And there's a condition called Takotsubo, where severe trauma or emotion causes a weird change in the shape of the heart, which can even be fatal, although it normally reverses. That's neurologically mediated – our brains are intimately connected to our bodies.' Psychologist Niamh Fitzpatrick has also observed first-hand how grief impacts every part of us. She suffered her own traumatic loss when her sister, Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, was killed along with three other crew members after their Irish Coast Guard Rescue helicopter crashed off the Mayo coast in 2017. Niamh talks about navigating her way through that grief in her book Tell Me the Truth About Loss. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys performing at 3Arena ,Dublin, in 2023. Photograph: Tom Honan/The Irish Times. 'Grief is a whole-person experience. It impacts us physically, emotionally, cognitively, socially, financially. There's so many layers and levels to it. And it's exhausting. The drain on us mentally, emotionally and in all sorts of ways is immense. And that's because of the impact of the loss on our life, the impact of knowing we are never going to see that person again, that we'll never sit with them or talk with them, we'll never hold and touch them, we won't do any of those things again.' Grief, it has been said, is the price we pay for love. And along with music, the other great comfort I've found to help me cope with sadness is nature. Or more specifically, a beach in Lahinch. The year before David's diagnosis, we were in and out of lockdowns, not able to meet up very often. But when we did meet, we headed for the seaside. I have photos of us smiling into the sun in Whitstable, eating fish and chips in Margate and standing with our mouths open in Herne Bay, gobsmacked by the most glorious sunset we'd ever seen, the sky glowing orange and red like a giant bonfire in the sky. I remembered that sunset the year after David died, standing on the beach in Lahinch on January 2nd. Christmas had been rough so when January hit, I decided to take my sad heart to the coast. Evidence shows that contact with nature lowers our blood pressure, cortisol levels and stress — Henry Marsh I'd spent most of the day on three buses, leaving Sligo early that morning while it was still dark. The rain was pelting down in Galway, with sodden ditches under water. The weather was even worse in Clare, swans and seagulls bobbing in the flooded fields. But as we approached Lahinch, a thin line of white light on the horizon started to force its way through the slate grey clouds and we arrived to blue skies and sunshine. People were beaming at each other on the beach, several of whom stopped to tell me they'd been trapped inside by storms all week. As I stood taking photos of the sunset, I felt David standing beside me, smiling in the joyous light. I spent most of the next few days on the beach, the sun shining so bright my friends messaged to ask if I was in the Mediterranean when I sent them my photos. And something inside me that was broken when David died started to heal. Bernadette Fallon on Lahinch beach 'Evidence shows that contact with nature lowers our blood pressure, cortisol levels and stress,' says Henry Marsh. 'I've always been a passionate believer in gardens and my proudest moment was creating a roof garden in St George's Hospital outside the wards. Research shows that having a view of nature from a window shortens your time in hospital and also reduces the need for painkillers.' I've gone back to Lahinch most months since. I walk on the beach and look at the beauty of it all and it helps me. Sometimes I feel David walking beside me. I thought I saw him the other day, hoisting his rucksack on his back at Clapham Junction, putting his earbuds in and walking across the station platform, tall and purposeful, heading out to meet another tough day. His work as a community psychiatric nurse meant dealing with people who were often on suicide watch lists, living in some of the poorest and most deprived parts of London. But he never complained. [ 'My husband recently died. We are in our early 50s. My whole future has been taken from me' Opens in new window ] [ The things I've learned about living from dying Opens in new window ] The thoughts of him striding out with courage to meet the world, despite what it threw at him, gives me hope to do the same. Sometimes, a day is a hard thing to face. 'Make a start,' says David in my head, 'just get out of bed.' It's the best advice I've heard so far. Just get out of bed. And take it from there. The time passes and the pain of grief doesn't go away, but it somehow becomes more manageable. Albert Einstein said time was an illusion anyway. So maybe we're still walking home to Seamus Quirke Road with bags of shopping to make our favourite dinner (pasta with ham in a garlic cream sauce – we thought we'd invented it until somebody told us about spaghetti carbonara). Maybe we're still crossing O'Brien's Bridge in the drizzle, my heels clip clopping on the footpath, West End Girls playing in our heads. In memory of David Moclair. Lived for 53 years, loved forever.

Calls for new public holiday in honour of St Colmcille
Calls for new public holiday in honour of St Colmcille

RTÉ News​

time4 hours ago

  • RTÉ News​

Calls for new public holiday in honour of St Colmcille

Donegal County Council is set to ask the Government to establish a new public holiday in honour of Saint Colmcille - also known as St Columba - the only Irish patron saint without a public holiday. Councillor Jimmy Kavanagh, whose motion calling for the public holiday was accepted at the council's latest meeting told RTÉ News there are two elements to the proposal. "Ireland is two days behind the European average of 12 public holidays per year. "St Colmcille is Ireland's third patron saint along with St Patrick and St Brigid, but he isn't recognised with a public holiday. We're looking to even that up," he said. Today marks St Colmcille feast day. Cllr Kavanagh has suggested two options as there is already a bank holiday in June. "The June Bank Holiday could be renamed in honour of St Colmcille (Columba), but that wouldn't solve the problem of Ireland having less public holidays than the rest of Europe. "Alternatively, we could go for a new public holiday on the first Monday in July. We don't have a public holiday in July in the Republic of Ireland," he said. Cllr Kavanagh added: "St Colmcille's story is a great story. I think it would be an excellent bank holiday. We're hoping the Government will look at the proposal in a positive way." He also said there would be all-Ireland, cross-border and international dimensions to any recognition, given St Colmcille's story. It is believed that St Colmcille was born in Gartán, Co Donegal in 521AD and established over 50 Christian sites throughout Ireland. In the English language, Colmcille translates as 'Dove of the Church'. He is regarded as one the three patrons saint of Ireland alongside St Patrick and St Brigid. There are many sites in the north west and in the eastern region associated with St Colmcille including Gleann Cholm Cille, Toraigh, Kells and Swords. The influential Irish monk is known the patron saint of Derry - as Gaeilge - Doire Cholmcille, meaning 'oakwood of Colmcille'. He was a significant historical figure in the spreading of Christianity in Britain. One of his most important monasteries was in Iona, off the coast of Scotland. Much history was written and recorded in his monasteries. One of Ireland's most famous books, the Book of Kells, written in Latin is believed to have been crafted by monks in the Columban monastery on Iona. Colmcille died in Iona on 9 June, 597. His legacy, as well as devotion to the saint, has endured to modern times. Many schools, churches and GAA clubs nationwide are named in his honour. Ireland has ten public holidays per year, and St Brigid's Day was the most recent addition to the list in 2023. The legislation which provides for public holidays is the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 (OWTA). The OWTA Act is under the policy remit of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the power to introduce an additional public holiday is provided for within this legislation.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store