Tgael About this book Text

About this book...

Taipeis Gael began as a training program funded through the EU Horizon and Udaras na Gaeltacht. In 1997 they formed a cooperative under the auspices of Oideas Gael, a cultural college in Gleanncolmcille. Recently forming a not-for-profit business, these artists have moved their studio into the century-old school house in Malin Beg, a few miles from Gleanncolmcille. From here their view looks upon the sea, an ancient Martello Tower, and Rathlin O'Birne Island, the tone and textures of which have been woven into their work.

While collaborating with textile artists abroad and exhibiting internationally, at home Taipeis Gael passes on Donegal's weaving legacy as mentors in national schools and colleges. Their cooperative contributes to sustainable employment in the western most corner of Ulster.
In researching this book, Meghan Nuttall Sayres made many trips over several years to Ireland. She lived in Galway in 1998 where she met with Ireland's leading textile artists, archaeologists, historians, librarians, rural development specialists, musicians, folklorists, botanists and marine scientists--anyone who could help her to weave a framework of the art and craft and history of the spinning, weaving and natural dyeing of textiles in Ireland.

Meghan also sat in the homes, work rooms and favorite pubs of the former spinners, knitters and tweed weavers in Gleanncolmcille whose mentoring proved central to the establishment of Taipeis Gael's weaving cooperative.
Laurence Boland, Dublin, is a member of Press Photographer's Association Ireland, the N.V.J., and contributes to Ireland's Sunday Tribune newspaper. His work has appeared in the London Independent, Observer Newspaper, Age Melbourne, Irish Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, New Hibernia Review and other international publications. He is the several-time winner of The Irish Press Photographers Of Ireland's National Awards and the Slattery Camera Circle Press Awards.

To read the introduction and essays in Weaving Tapestry in Rural Ireland please click on this issue of New Hibernia Review. Here you will find "Conversations in Dunegal," in which two of the mentors who inspired Taipeis Gael tapestry artists, Con O'Gara, and Mary McNelis, speak to us from their weaving shed and sweater factory showroom.
To read a recent review of Weaving Tapestry by the Irish Studies Department, College of Charleston, S.C., please click here: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-34218155_ITM

This Project is Supported by:
The Irish Arts and Heritage Council
and
Udaras na Gaeltachta

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 To order in the UK:  Cork University Press or Fitzmullbooks