Irish Thatch

Emma Byrne is a graphic designer and artist. She is a graduate of Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. She has won numerous awards for her design including The IDI (Irish Design Institute) Graduate Designer of the Year, the IDI Promotional Literature Award for her work on Brown Morning, and a Children’s Books Ireland Bisto Merit Award for her work on Something Beginning With P: New Poems from Irish Poets. She has illustrated many books, including Best-Loved Oscar Wilde, Best-Loved Yeats, The Most Beautiful Letter in the World by Karl O’Neill, a special edition of Ulysses by James Joyce, and A Terrible Beauty by Mairéad Ashe Fitzgerald. Her other books are Irish Thatch and, with Eoin O’Brien, Best-Loved Irish Ballads.

• PART ONE:Chapter One: Brief history of thatch, the perceived/exported view of thatched homes in Ireland .Chapter Two: The raw materials: wheat, hazel, bamboo, straw reed, rye, some text and images of crops etcChapter Three: A Case study, an instructive essay about the process of getting a thatcher, tools, crafts signature etc.PART TWOChapter Four: A selection of thatched homes around Ireland, can be divided in to North South East WestAppendix: list of contractors, information on grants etc

wonderful tribute to the old art of thatching