I am originally from Clonfert, Co Galway, but I have been living in Cloghan, Co Offaly, for over 30 years. I make traditional and contemporary willow, hazel and straw-basket products. I married an Offaly woman and worked in Bord na Móna when I got married first. Then, up until 2006, I worked with ESB in Shannonbridge, which is when I retired. I was making baskets before that as a hobby.

There's a special technique for making the top rim of a basket.

Willow

I grow my own willow, I probably have about four acres altogether. That’s not all planted in willow, I do a lot of gardening as well. I have about two acres of it planted.

We were cutting the willow in mid-February. It probably takes a week to cut everything.

I don’t use it all myself, I sell some to other basket makers as well. Only a small amount though, because I always keep enough in hand in case there’s unexpected orders.

Bord na Móna planted willow in around 1995 for test purposes.

They didn’t know what they were going to do with the bog after cutting stopped so they tried to experiment with growing willow and other things. They just planted it and left it alone.

Padraig Larkin is originally from Clonfert, Co Galway.

Over time, it went wild so I enquired as to what they were going to do with it. They said: “Nothing, you can have it if you want it.” So I’m cutting it for the last 20 years. That’s a freebie, but they get the place cleaned up and I get the willow.

In the genes

My parents were both able to make baskets. My father was a hurley maker by trade and he had a farm as well. My mother dabbled in rush work, making baskets with rushes.

When we were young we used to cut the rushes for mother, she would dry them and then make things with them.

That was her hobby. At the time, all those trades were already dying out so it wasn’t cool to be involved in anything like that.

This technique used to weave straw is called tait and plait.

Over 20 years ago, I got the opportunity to go to a basket maker down in Lough na Fooey in Connemara. I went for a three-day class with Joe Hogan and I was smitten straight away. I got some willow material from him to plant and that’s the stock I’m still using.

Up to about the 1960s, it was a seven-year apprenticeship to learn how to make a basket.

The process was; the first year you’d be out harvesting the stuff, you wouldn’t be anywhere near a basket. As time went on you’d be sorting the material. Then you might be standing beside the basket maker and handing him whatever he wanted as he made the basket.

The tait and plait technique is considered unique to Ireland.

After that you were shown how to make the base and you probably spent a year making bases alone, and then you were shown how to make the sides of the basket, but they’d never show you how to finish off the top rim of the basket.

That’s a specialist technique and you would only learn in your final year. The reason was if you knew how to do everything you would be gone and you would be in competition with the master.

There will always be a grá for it like all the old trades, but the future is bleak enough in a way.

I have a son and he knows how to make a basket but he works in IT, other than him I know of nobody else in the younger generation that would continue it on.

Tait and plait

I developed from willow into straw work. I’m part of the Irish Basketmakers Association and they arranged for straw master Ted Kenny to give us a class.

I’ve been into straw work ever since that. The straw work is very special and he was one of the last guys that knew exactly how they were made.

Sadly, there’s only a few of us doing it on a regular basis. I think the straw work will die out with our generation.

Straw work is very rare nowadays.

Getting the material can be difficult with modern farming – they use Round-up to treat the straw but it leaves it brittle so I grow a little bit of oaten straw for my own use. Oaten straw is the nicest looking because of its golden colour, it holds its colour well and it grows longer than wheat.

The problem with it though is that it is fairly sensitive to rough use so I cut it by hand or I get some from vintage shows and thrashings. I get it before it goes through the thrashing machine.

The technique is called “tait and plait”, it’s very simple and we believe it’s exclusively Irish. Nobody knows know far it dates back to.

The little bundles of straw you use, maybe 10 to 15 individual straws, they’re called taits and these would be plaited like a hair plait.

One row of plaiting is bound to the next row. Plenty of things were made of it like baskets, mats in front of doors and even mattresses.

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