Celtic Designs a speciality...
The shop also stocks some of the finest crafts available in Ireland, including Ogham Writing, Prints, Cards from artist Gail Kelly and unusual Nail Craft, together with photographs from local photographer Pat O'Conor. We also have a selection from World Craft.
Origin of Ogham Writing
The Ogham alphabet is thought to be named after the Irish god Ogma. One theory of its origins is that it evolved out of a system of tallies used for accounting. Ogham is also known as or ogham craobh, beth luis fearn or beth luis nion.
About 500 Ogham inscriptions have been found in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England dating from between the 4th and 7th centuries AD. There are inscriptions in archaic forms of Gaelic and Pictish, which have not been deciphered. A handful of inscriptions featuring the Ogham script and the Latin alphabet have also been found.
While all surviving traces of Ogham are inscriptions on stone, it was probably more commonly inscribed on sticks, stakes and trees. Inscriptions generally take the form of somebody's name and the name of a place and were probably used to mark boundaries.
Notable features
- Type of writing system: alphabet
- Number of letters: 25
- Writing surfaces: rocks, wood, manuscripts
- Direction of writing: inscribed around the edges of rocks running from bottom to top and left to right, or left to right and horizontally in manuscripts.
- Letters are linked together by a solid line.
- The names and sounds represented by some of the letters are unknown.
- The Eite (feather) and Eite thuathail (reversed feather) symbols are used at the beginning and end of sentences respectively.
The Ogham alphabet
Sample text in Ogham
Traditional Nailcraft Sculptures
 Traditional Nailcraft Sculptures
Hand Crafted Figurines - Session (Bodhran, Box, Fiddle, Flute, Harp)
Hand crafted from horseshoe nails, The 'Session' with bodhran, box, fiddle, flute and harp players.
These super figurines make excellent gifts for your musical friend. Each individual model is hand-crafted in Ireland by a musical blacksmith friend of Eagle Music! The figures are hand crafted from genuine horse shoe nails using the skills and techniques from the traditional blacksmith, carefully sculptered and welded together to make unique traditional musicians. The artist blacksmith has a great feel for the music, as can be seen in the figures that are quite life like in the posture of each player.
They are finished in satin black with green base material attached to the underside of the base plate to protect the surface where they are to be displayed. Each figure is supplied with a certificate from the maker.
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