A year and a bit ago I traveled to Ireland to attend the Sliabh Aughty Furnace Festival (since renamed the Woodford Furnace Festival). Along my journey I visited the Dublin National Museum of Archaeology which was showing an exhibit on viking ironwork. I then traveled by bus to County Wicklow to visit and work with blacksmith Finin Liam Christie. While there we made tongs and hammers. I then traveled west to County Galway where blacksmith Stephen Quinn let me hang around for a few days. He showed me a simple and elegant way to calculate a punch size for any desired hole, among other little tricks. Finally I arrived in Woodford, County Galway for the iron smelting festival….
