I can’t stop talking about blacksmithing. Any time I’ve run into someone in the last year, I’ve found some way to bring it up. Perhaps it’s a symptom of my obsession with the Middle Ages, or an effect of my brother being a welder, or maybe a function of my interest in age-old crafts as a way to counterbalance my anxiety about the unknown future.
That’s all to say, when I learned that Ashford Castle—the historic Guinness family estate turned iconic luxury hotel in County Mayo, Ireland—offers an experience where you can shadow a blacksmith for a day, I leapt at the opportunity. I booked the “Fire & Wood” itinerary within the hotel’s Meet the Makers program, designed to help guests connect with authentic local crafts and culture, as part of an August stay with my mom. Next thing I knew, I was flying out to the Irish countryside.
On the morning of our workshop, I woke in my stately canopy bed in one of Ashford’s gorgeous guest rooms with a conundrum: What does one wear to shadow a blacksmith? (No steel-toe boots fit in my tiny carry-on, and I didn’t want to bring my favorite cashmere sweater home with burn holes.) Luckily, our guide Eoin Warner, the exceptional Irish experiences ambassador at Ashford Castle, let me know I had nothing to fear—during our pre-briefing, he gave us protective Wellies and jackets to wear for the outing, so we could smith in style (and safety).
Sarah Wood González
Sarah Wood González
Warner warned us that our blacksmithing experience would not be a historical lesson, but rather a chance to learn by doing. Luckily, we were already satiated with knowledge from our in-depth tour with Fintan Gorman, the Ashford Castle historian. He told us that the Guinnesses—yes, the ones behind the famous Irish beer—employed a family of expert blacksmiths, the Hickeys, who shod the horses (which means attaching horseshoes to their hooves) for farm work and transportation, crafted iron fencing and gates, and made weapons and farming tools. We also learned that blacksmiths were not only essential for work back in the day, but for culture as well—forges were often a place of gathering, because they were one of the few places that always had a fire going. Blacksmiths have been extremely well-regarded throughout Irish history, we found out, and I was excited to meet one myself.
After our briefing, Warner drove us 40 minutes or so to Kilreekil, Galway, where blacksmith Stephen Quinn’s workshop sat tucked among the farmland. We spilled out of the car and entered the shop, intricate wrought-iron fences and balconies in various stages of completion framing our path like the lollipop trees in Candyland.
