Greenan Maze host Heritage Skills Festival from Friday 19th September to Sunday 21st September 2025
Excerpt By Myles Buchanan, Wicklow People, Thu 21 Aug 2025
Greenan Farm Museums and Maze in the beautiful hills of Co Wicklow will host a unique heritage skills festival the InHand Forum from 19th to 21st September 20205. This weekend event will bring together international speakers, experts, passionate learners and the community to research, rekindle and rethink our ancient heritage and skills.
Workshops in blacksmithing and silversmithing, bronze-casting, iron-smelting, stone-carving and dry-stone wall building will run alongside field trials in the crafts and public talks by local and national experts and historians.
The three-day ‘think-in’ runs from Friday, September 19, through to Sunday, September 21, and is co-ordinated by artist and model-maker Robert Clarke, sculptor and bronze casting tutor Ciaran Patterson and silversmith Eva Lynch, who are keen to encourage both the sharing of knowledge and the re-imagining of these ancient practices.
Ciaran said: “We aspire to create a forum that attracts and hosts leading international professionals and to provide a dynamic space for the cross-fertilisation of ancient knowledge and skills. “We want to create for our attendees, tutors and lecturers, the appropriate environment to debate, experiment, learn and advance the knowledge in these fields”.
Furnace Festivals will be bringing their bloomery iron smelting school to the InHand Forum. Smelting is the ancient method of turning natural oxides that grow in the bog into metallic iron and steel. Leading international smelting experts Jens Jorgen Olesson (Denmark), Eric Dennis (USA) and pioneers of the Irish smelting community will teach people how to produce and refine bloomery iron, wrought iron and steel from Irish bog ore using traditional ancient Irish methods of smelting. This three-day courses, starting on Friday, September 19th, will combine hands-on technical learning and demonstrations on smelting, refining, and forging bloomery iron. Participants will build the clay furnace, prepare charcoal and bog ore, and smelt their own iron blooms.
A three-day sand crafting with bronze greensand casting workshop will be led by professional founder Ciaran Patterson. Participants will explore mould making techniques and methods, pattern design considerations, and best practice metal pouring.
Another workshop will explore the art of stone carving. Sculptor James Horan leads this course for beginners, providing an immersive experience that introduces the fundamental tools and techniques used to shape stone, with a special focus on relief sculpture—a unique art form that bridges the gap between drawing and three-dimensional sculpture.
Dominic Keogh and friends will guide participants through the process of dry stone construction. With attention on preparation foundations and carving quoin stones, the weekend long course will provide an invaluable resource for anyone interested in our stone heritage.
Professional blacksmiths and silversmiths will offer a range of workshops for beginners, enthusiasts and fellow-professionals looking to add to their skillset. Join silversmith Eva Lynch and Forged in Ireland blacksmiths to create your own repousse tools and learn this ancient bronze age technique in a three day immersion course into blacksmithing skills and tool-making.
You can also learn how to forge, handle and heat-treat your own knife using traditional methods with master craftsman Jamie Smith of Triscele Forge. Bring along your design and get creative at the bladesmithing weekend on offer as part of the festival.
The festival will also feature a number of guest speakers. Local historian Carmel O’Toole will give an insight into how employees of John Hayes of Ballinaclash, the grandfather of Colonel Samuel Hayes of Avondale, found lead ore in the townland of Ballinafunshoge Glenmalure in 1726.
Professional coppice worker, musician and craftsman Mike Carswell presents an overview of the process of the sustainable making of charcoal from wood from managed forestry.
A presentation by Paul Rondalez will give an overview of the evidence for the smelting of iron ore and the further forging of the metal in Co. Wicklow over a period of about 2,500 years and this in its international setting.
An 8th generation of a line of family members working in Masonry. Killian O’Flaherty will talk about the history of Ballyknocken Granite and how it helped to build of some of the most iconic buildings in Dublin and beyond.
Christiaan Corlett will provide a talk exploring the small number of stonecutters who were responsible for the majority of 18th century headstones that can be found throughout the graveyards of County Wicklow and neighbouring counties.
Evelyn Murray, one of the founding members, current project lead and driving force behind the craft platform, Made in Wicklow, will also deliver a talk.
The majority of the talks cost €10, while the three-day workshops cost €285, and tickets can be purchased by visiting inhandforum.ie