Some of you may already know,  apart from my interest in pilgrimage, medieval and modern, I am also very interested in post medieval folk art.  In 2016, I set up the Irish Folk Art Project  to documents and records non funerary folk art around Ireland. Last year  I was invited by Roisin O’Grady, the  Tipperary Heritage Officer,  to contribute  part of my folk art research to the ‘Stories from the Landscape’ project.

‘Stories from the Landscape’ is a collaborative project between the Heritage Offices in Tipperary, Galway and Clare and the Galway Film Centre, supported by the Heritage Council.  It consists of  a series of nine short films, three from  each county. Each film showcases a unique heritage story relating to the county.

Tipperary Stories from the Landscape

The Tipperary stories  feature environmental Heritage of Tipperary with Gearoid O Foighil from Cloughjordan  telling the story of Schohoboy bog  restoration, social history of Mining in Slieveardagh area by former miner Michael Cleere.  I was very honoured that my  research on the Tipperary Folk Art was chosen as the archaeological story for the county.

My Short Film  ‘A Cat with Two Tails’

My film showcases an aspect of my research on Tipperary Folk Art. It explores the links  between a series of late 18th/19th century  carvings of cats with two tails found in Tipperary and contemporary folklore about Goban Saor. It also show the results of a  photogrametry survey of the Tipperary Folk Art  commissioned by the Irish Folk Art Project and funded by the Tipperary Heritage Officer . The survey was carried out by Gary Dempsey of Digital Heritage Age.

Making the Film

Filming took place on a very cold day last Novemeber.  The film was directed by Paul Murphy , with camera work by Ivan Marcos. It was a pleasure to spend the day working with these two very talented and professional people. Paul Murphy is also the director of the award winning short film The Weather Report (https://www.facebook.com/theweatherreportshortfilm/) which is playing as part of this years Irish Film Festival Australia.

Rock of Cashel Co Tipperary

Filming took place on location at a number of well-known Tipperary Heritage sites such as Holycross Abbey, the Swiss Cottage, and the Rock of Cashel.

View of Holycross Abbey from across the river

View of the cloister

View of Church from Cloister

All of the sites have folklore connecting them to the Gobán Saor and the story of  his carving of a cat with two tails.

Cat with Two Tails Swiss Cottage

The film also shows how the carvings of the cats and  the folklore of the Goban has influnced the  work  Tipperary sculptor David Gorey. David  who is based in Fethard kindly allowed us to film in his studio.

Filming Workshop Sculptor David Gorey

Looking at modern carving of Cat with Two Tails at David Gorey’s Workshop.

I highly recommend that you check out some of the other films in the series for  Tipperary, Clare and Galway.