Next stop was the Sliabh Aughty Furnace Project in Woodford co. Galway, a week long bloomery smelting festival (since re-named the Woodford Furnace Festival). The goal of the project was to bring together experts and enthusiasts from all over the world, harvest local bog ore, and see if it could be smelted in a variety of different style furnaces. I worked under the guidance of Jake Keen from England. Our team built three furnaces of similar design using clay, straw, and sand. We built our furnaces rather small to further investigate Jake’s work to understand the minimum feasible size for a vertical shaft furnace. What I learned from Jake during that week I hold to invaluable in my own process of learning to smelt iron. I am still (a year and a half later) realizing just how much I was taught.
