Harp Badge for Boat School

In April, I formed a woodcarving club - Limerick Woodcarvers. We meet in the classroom of the AK Ilen boat-building school in Roxboro in Limerick. The boat-building school has recently completed 4 traditional river Shannon gandelows (flat-bottomed river rowing-boats) and took them to Venice in Italy for a race. On request, I made harp-shaped badges for the stern of the boats, based on the logo of the AK Ilen organisation. They are each about 4 inches long, made of lime wood, and coated in Danish oil. The badges were finished just in time for the trip to Italy. I used two of the swirl-holes to pierce the badges to take wood-screws, for attaching to the gandelows.

Hurling Ball (Sliotar)

This is a wooden model of the ball used in the Irish (Gaelic) game of Hurling. The leather ball, or sliotar (pronounced shlitther) is hit with a wooden stick (a hurley). I carved this wooden copy of the ball from bog oak, i.e. very old wood recovered from a field. It was part of the deal, that my colleague Billy gave me a large chunk of bog oak in return for my carving a sliotar for him. After I used a saw and chisels to make the rough sphere, I carved the final shape with knives and palm tools. I sanded it then finished it with varnish.