Losing skills

I don’t know about you, but I like watching the re-runs of the ‘Hands’ series on RTE – about old trades.  I find watching the skill and craft of watching someone work with their hands and tools – without the modern computer or mechanical intervention- so enjoyable and deserving of respect.

Even when standing at the butcher counter, I can admire the skill of extracting a consistent cut while leaving the remaining carcass in a clean and solid mass. I can only picture the hacked remains and uneven surface that would be the result of any of my efforts.

A few years ago at the Cork Summer Show, there was a blacksmith’s forge set up. Even though the ‘Gabhann’, was not forging anything, I stood and watched for a few minutes just to take in the set-up and the equipment. If I was on my own that day, I would have stayed much longer just watching and taking in the how’s and the why’s.

Last year, I blogged about the remembering of old forges. Maybe a headstone to a dying art may be too strong an expression, but last week I did spot another memorial to another forge – in Inchigeela.

That was on my way west for the stone unveiling where my dreams of another craft were dispelled. Maybe it was just because I hadn’t considered advancing technologies moving into such an old trade but when I learnt that the typesetting and engraving of stone are now computerised, I definitely had the sense that not all technology is good.

It reminded me of the headstone that I saw some time ago in St FinnBarr’s Cemetery. I have thought on it often even though I have no association or relationship with the McCarthy’s.

Is there any tougher task than creating such a long lasting memorial to a master craftsman?