Wonderful willow creations by Pat and Aoife
REPORTER DAVID MEDCALF CALLED TO THE GLENDALOUGH HOME OF A COUPLE WHO CREATE MODERN INSTALLATIONS FROM A NATURAL MATERIAL WHICH HAS BEEN USED FOR CENTURIES. THEY SPOKE OF THE WONDERS OF FLEXIBLE WILLOW
AOIFE Patterson and Pat Reid have a garden, surrounding their family home. Aoife and Pat live in one of the most picturesque parts of the Garden County, with coach loads of tourists passing not far from their front gate every day.
So their Glendalough home most certainly does have a garden, with some of the usual features you might expect to find in such a garden.
There is a bit of a lawn, the grassy space where their infinitely energetic and engaging young boys Fionnán and Hudie can let off steam.
The couple also grow their share of the shrubs and plants which are par for the course in a family garden. But on closer examination, the visitor may note an unusual underlying theme which is ever so slightly out of the ordinary.
The hedge which runs between the public road and their property is backboned by wicker-work.
And instead of growing parsnips or potatoes in the far corner, the householders here are cultivating willow.
Welcome to the nerve centre of Wicklow Willow, offering willow fencing, willow garden features, willow basket weaving courses.
If there’s willow involved, then Aoife and Pat are the people to turn to for advice, guidance and expertise.
It may be remarked that some landscapers regard willow as little better than a weed, an intruder, a pest. After all, it grows like crazy and often puts down roots where it has not been invited, spreading its woody tentacles like the creeping Birnam Wood of Shakespeare’s imagination edging towards Macbeth’s castle.
However, it stands to its credit that willow is capable of colonising the dampest of soil and thrives on neglect.
Aoife and Pat prefer to see the positive side of this most enterprising of trees which has been prized by crafts folk and artists for centuries.
They capitalise on the flexibility of the shoots of the willow as a material capable of both high art and everyday practical use.
And they make the most of willow’s ability to grow fast, even from as minuscule a starting point as a single twig stuck into the ground, to devise living sculptures.
Aoife was born and raised in the area, daughter of Eileen who served as principal of the primary school in Glendalough.
Her father is Gerry Patterson, whose claim to fame is that he worked for many decades as the head forester in this deeply wooded countryside.
‘I had nature and forests from day one!’ laughs Aoife, who reports that her long retired dad remains as passionate about timber at the age of 82 as he was when on the staff of Coillte.
Gerry’s over-riding responsibility during his career was the large stands of commercial pine and spruce which dominate upland forestry.
But he was always exploring fresh ideas, notably the growing of Christmas trees as an alternative source of revenue from highlands.
Though conifers were the stuff of his daily work, he also had an interest in deciduous broadleaves and this has clearly been passed on to his daughter.
While the garden beside Aoife’s house is in the shadow of looming pines, she and husband Pat now have a patch devoted to the growing of willow.
She reveals, however, that her original choice of career was in a different field altogether.
The 36-year-old graduated in archaeology and geography at UCD, going on to practise as a professional archaeologist.
At the start of the millennium, when the Celtic Tiger was roaring loudest, there was plenty of work to be had. She reels off a list of the motorways – M1, M11, M50 included – where she one of the crew exploring the routes of the new roads for relics of the past.
MANY prehistoric finds were made during the process, each one surveyed and documented, maybe some artefacts removed, before being smothered beneath the tarmac.
In the UK, 90 per cent of the sites where ancient heritage and modern infrastructure collide in this way are lost forever.
But Ireland has adopted a policy of much more rigorous examination of the reminders the past which are exposed by road building, from Stone Age burial sites to 18th century residences.
In Aoife’s case, this attention to old detail proved pivotal to her life as archaeology brought romance, in the form of Pat Reid.
Ten years her senior and now happily living in Glendalough, he hails originally from Athy in County Kildare where he began working as a young man in the construction industry.
‘I didn’t like being a steel fabricator,’ he remembers bluntly, looking back to the days when he was an uncomfortably round peg in a square hole.
Pat was brave enough to find an alternative occupation, making enquiries of those in charge at an excavation of a local graveyard. He was accepted as a worker at the site: ‘they turned me loose on skeletons,’ Pat smiles at the memory.
He re-trained formally as an archaeologist and eventually he too found gainful employment with the road builders, clearing the way for what is now the M11 by-pass of Gorey.
He and Aoife first met in a workplace pre-occupied with standing stones and Viking remains in amongst the JCB’s and the concrete mixers, somewhere close to the Wicklow-Wexford border a dozen years ago.
Then came the economic crash and the age of austerity, when new motorways became a luxury no longer so easily afforded.
The pair of them were obliged to seek out alternatives, such as Wicklow Willow, their joint enterprise which emerged from financial adversity.
Aoife recalls that she first began playing with basketry, strictly as a hobby and a side-line, as long ago as 2003. She gives much of the credit to a course delivered by basketry legend Joe Hogan from Loch na Fooey in Galway, returning there annually to draw further inspiration.
The pastime was a natural extension of her lifelong interest in art and she found her fingers
were strong enough and nimble enough to make her a natural willow weaver. She took examples of her output to festivals such as Electric Picnic and Body & Soul, where they were well received.
In recent years, she has followed her mother’s footsteps into teaching, running courses in basket weaving for people of all ages, spreading the passion to her students.
Among those with whom she has shared her expertise is a community enterprise group at Signal Arts in Bray. She has tutored members of men’s sheds and community arts trainees with the Education and Training Board.
She has worked with women’s groups and also with teenagers, stimulating young minds to take an interest in artistic designs at Arklow Youthreach.
Nearer to home, she runs a regular class at the Brocagh centre, within walking distance of home.
The Wicklow Willow web-site shows wonderful examples of her baskets but the site also illustrates that there is more to this business than producing fireside log containers and splendid wedding gifts.
When Pat showed an interest in the work, his background as a builder came into play as together he and Aoife started to use live plants as well as with the dried sallies.
They have created domes and sculptures for local councils, planting them in the winter and watching them come to leafy life in summer.
On a simple level, willow is useful for marking divisions between fields on land, creating simple ditches.
Pat and partner are capable of more intricate creations, and they love fashioning mazes and labyrinths, or garden features including gazebos, tunnels, arches and domes. Examples of what they can achieve may be seen in various locations, from Tallaght to Ashford.
‘Maintain a willow sculpture and it will last forever as the willows grow into each other,’ says Aoife. ‘Willow is amazing.’
Her ambition is to have her raw material grown on the spot in Glendalough but, in the meantime, she and Pat must work with bought in sallies. They have found a reliable source of supply at Burtown House in Kildare, close to Pat’s home town of Kildare.
Both husband and wife were jolted back into education by the collapse of the Tiger, with Aoife taking a qualification in archaeological illustration from Swindon College of Art.
Meanwhile, Pat embarked on specialist training in Celtic studies and geology which has led to his being retained by the National Heritage Council. His archaeological background has proven useful as he helps the council to compile ‘heritage maps’ to illustrate Ireland’s heritage.
So far, most of his work has been concentrated on Clare, assembling data on everything from historic monuments to biodiversity which is open to view on the www.hertitagemaps.ie website.
THE maps project has also focused much of its resources so far on Dublin, with Wicklow awaiting roll-out of a full national service.
In the meantime, he and his wife have found a most satisfactory outlet for their energies and imaginations in the willow grove.
WILLOW HAS AN ABILITY TO GROW FAST, SHOOTING UP FROM AS LITTLE AS A SINGLE TWIG STUCK INTO THE GROUND, TO ALLOW THE MAKING OF LIVING SCULPTURES