Kildare County Council invites you to join in a #WallofWool Challenge at the National Ploughing Championships
Creative Ireland, in association with Kildare County Council and Wool in School, are delighted to invite visitors to the Culture, Creativity, Innovation and Sport tent at the National Ploughing Championships to complete fun and short knitting challenges which will be attached to a final knitted collage, becoming an artistic “Wall of Wool”.
Each challenge will be crafted onto a “Wall of Wool” panel to make up a depiction of a St. Brigid’s Cloak celebrating and commemorating the legacy of St. Brigid. The final project will comprise of four cloaks to be displayed in the four provinces of Ireland, in time for the Brigid 1500 commemorations in 2024, with the Leinster cloak to be exhibited in Kildare Town.
In association with Kildare County Council and Wool in School, visitors are invited to test their crafting skills with a variety of techniques to create wool elements that will be crafted together to create a dynamic and engaging Wall of Wool using only local Irish Wool. We celebrate our indigenous wool industry and the farmers who work so hard to produce it.
The #WallofWool initiative is a legacy project from ‘Future Tapestry’ which took place in Kildare earlier this year. It was an artistic response to the history, legacy and contemporary currency of Irish wool production, developed following a period of research with sheep farmers who uphold the practice of harvesting wool. The work was artistically directed and produced by visual artist John Conway, with a virtual reality experience by Nóho structured around an ode written and performed by theatre maker Aisling Byrne – a verbatim text based on her engagement and conversations with Kildare Sheep Farmers. The work was commissioned by Kildare County Council Library Service, Climate Action and Age Friendly Co-ordinators. Funded by Creative Ireland through the Creativity in Older Age Scheme 2022.
