What have Yasser Arafat, Nelson Mandela, Charles J. Haughey, President Bill Clinton and Pope John Paul II in common? The answer: they all own a sculpture by Longford-based Michael Casey.
Over the last 30 years Casey has earned a reputation as one of Ireland's top artists in wood, especially bog oak, yew and pine. His work can be found all over the world, in the homes of the rich and famous, in churches, financial institutions and public buildings.
People using Dublin Airport will see his work outside the terminal building, outside the Bord na Mona headquarters in Newbridge, at Mullingar General Hospital, in the Ceide Fields centre in Mayo, and at the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin.
The gentle, unassuming Casey works from his lakeside cottage at Barley Harbour, near Newtowncashel, Co Longford, which is adorned with his sculptures. It was to this retreat that Casey came 30 years ago when he ended his travels as a craftsman. A trained carpenter, he had worked in the US, Canada and throughout Europe.
He had been involved in a tourism venture in his native Roscommon and had built traditional gypsy caravans to lease to holidaymakers. One of the caravans had been hired by a young Dutch woman called Ellie, and she and Michael later married and settled at Barley Harbour.
Michael loved wood and, inspired by the shapes and forms of the rocks along Lough Ree at his home, he began working with bog oak to try to capture some of those unique shapes.
The former Taoiseach, Mr Haughey, was one of the first people in the country to appreciate Casey's craft and has many of his finer pieces. And when Longford got its "own" Taoiseach, Mr Albert Reynolds, he presented Casey sculptures as gifts to heads of state and prominent people when he travelled abroad.
"It pleases me very much that Irish people now have the confidence in their own heritage that they can present a gift of Irish bog oak to a head of state or a prominent person," Mr Reynolds said. "When I was starting off it was a different case. People seemed to think that anything local was not important. It's a sign of the changing times and a growing confidence."
Recent commissions have brought Casey's work to a wide audience. Terry Wogan featured his work on a TV programme about Ireland, and the night it was screened he received a call from a pastor in Kent.
"They were rededicating the church and I was asked to supply 12 pieces, including the altar and the baptism font. It worked out very well and they are very pleased with it," Casey said.
Pope John Paul II owns a chalice crafted by Casey. It was commissioned by the International Beatification Committee for the beatification Mass of Edmund Rice last year. Now Casey has completed what he believes is his best work to date, an eight-foot baptism font for the parish church in Ferbane, Co Offaly.
"I think everything I learned over the past 30 years has gone into this piece. I love it," he said as he put the final touches to the 5,000-year-old piece of yew. "The Ferbane people were expecting a four-foot piece but I got a little carried away, but it's worth it," he said.
His son, Kevin, works with him in Barley Harbour, and during the last few years Casey has trained other young sculptors in a centre called Celtic Roots set up by Bord na Mona at Ferbane.