Bronze Age craft now in hot demand

For some, it is fire and iron. For others, the attraction is pure hot metal. It is a Bronze Age craft, and it is alive and well in Belmullet, Co Mayo.

Welding, riveting, bending, twisting, hot cutting, shortening steel are just some of the skills acquired by 12 trainees since the blacksmithing course began last autumn. Located in a factory unit owned by Udaras na Gaeltachta, the two-year programme aims to revive an art associated with the Erris Gaeltacht.

Best described as the skill of beating red-hot lengths of metal into shape, and forging or welding them together on the anvil, the course boasts a former maths and physics teacher and a craft-worker and mother of two among its participants.

Hailing from Wicklow, Dublin, Sligo, Mayo and Belmullet itself, the nine men and three women didn't come to make horseshoes, Anna O'Donoghue, chief executive of Cearta Inneona, the National Blacksmithing and Forging Training Centre, stressed. "There are a lot of misconceptions about smithing which we aim to address," she emphasised. Horseshoes aren't even on the training programme.

"In fact, I'd be very worried if anyone here tried," Henry Pomfret, head trainer and a qualified English smith, told The Irish Times. Shoeing horses is associated with farriery, a particular science, while smithing is a discipline with artistic and industrial applications. In the past decade a growing weariness with conformity has seen a revival in the craft in Europe and the US.

As Cearta Inneona states, blacksmithing relates to architecture, restoration, education and research and development, especially the continued use of iron as a cheap, convenient and readily available raw material.

It cites one architect, Edward Cullinan CBE, who says we have passed the modern architectural period of "mass production, smooth detailing and repetition". We are now discovering "an expressive architecture, desperately in need of artistic craftsmen".

Indeed, local authorities are already setting aside 1 per cent of project costs for public art, as well as making large investments in the restoration of ironwork, Cearta Inneona notes. It is indicative of the skills shortage that the Irish Georgian Society could find only one or two Irish-based art smiths to list under the blacksmithing category for a register of skilled craftspeople for restoration work.

Ironically, the patience for repetitive work is one of the qualities that makes a good smith. And dedication and a good eye, according to Henry Pomfret, who said it is "almost an addiction". His assistant trainer, Elmer Roush, who was based in an art school in the US, believes all that's needed is just "the will to do it".

Love of conversation could be a definite impediment; as this reporter noted on a visit to the Belmullet forge, the noise and the heat allow little opportunity for dialogue. The three most challenging aspects are hammer control, fire control and fire welding, according to Mr Pomfret, who is well satisfied with his students' progress. Already they have produced brackets and tongs and fire welds. A pair of tongs can take two days to make.

The two-year course is accredited by the Crafts Council of Ireland, and backed by Udaras na Gaeltachta, Mayo County Council, Erris Leader and the EU Social Fund.

Among its directors are David Shaw-Smith, director of the Crafts Council of Ireland and award-winning documentary film-maker; Seamus Caulfield of UCD, the man behind the Ceide Fields project in north Mayo; Senator Ernie Caffrey; Bill Freeland, a US sculptor and north Mayo resident; Dennis Michael, businessman and chairman of Moy Valley Resources; William Michael, a metalworker and student blacksmith; Anna O'Donoghue, an economics graduate and consultant to commercial and rural community-based projects; and Ian Wieczorek, journalist and editor of Arts West magazine.

From this month the course intends to embrace other aspects of the Erris Gaeltacht's heritage. The trainees and their two instructors will take Irish-language classes, and Dr Caulfield will bring them on field trips. Next year six overseas students will be invited to join. And this April the project intends to host a "forgein" over Easter weekend, when Belmullet will be invaded by more than 100 blacksmiths from all over the world.

Cearta Inneona has assisted in forming an Irish Artists' Blacksmith Association, and the aim is to form links with other associations abroad. Anna O'Donoghue is confident that the trainees will be able to make a living from their craft; not just helping out the local farmer with a plough, but producing their own artwork and demonstrating that smithing is anything but "horses and heritage".

Certa Inneona can be contacted at (096) 70998.