In a converted studio in Drumcannon, just outside Tramore in County Waterford, Cathy Hayden does something that very few people in Ireland still do: she weaves traditional baskets from willow she grows herself. She has been doing it for over thirty years, and she is very good at it.
A Living Connection to Joe Shanahan
Cathy’s route into basketry began at night classes in Dublin in the early eighties, but the education that matters came later: a full year’s intensive training with Joe Shanahan in Carrick-on-Suir, the last heir to a long family line of traditional basket weavers. That transmission of knowledge from Shanahan to Hayden represents one of the few direct lines of continuity with Ireland’s pre-industrial basketmaking tradition — a lineage now recognised as part of Ireland’s National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The craft very nearly vanished. Cheap imported alternatives from Southeast Asia undercut handmade Irish baskets from the 1970s onwards, and the number of practitioners dwindled to almost nothing. Cathy is one of the small group — listed in the Irish Basketmakers Association — who kept the tradition alive.
Grown and Made in Waterford
What distinguishes Cathy’s work from most contemporary craft basketry is that she grows her own willow — selecting, harvesting, and preparing the material before a single weave is made. The baskets that result have a particular character: sturdy, honest, and deeply rooted in the local landscape.
Her fuel baskets are generous, robust things — woven from natural willow with the bark intact, built for daily use over many years. But she also makes more delicate work, and runs basketry workshops for beginners who want to learn even a fragment of what she knows.
Growing your own willow, training under Joe Shanahan, weaving by hand in Waterford for thirty-plus years — Cathy Hayden is the real thing.
Waterford Crafts, Nearly Three Decades
Cathy has been a member of Waterford Crafts for nearly thirty years, exhibiting and selling through the organisation alongside the county’s other working craftspeople. Her baskets appear occasionally in craft fairs and specialist retailers — including Anthology, the Dublin craft gallery — where they sell quietly to people who understand what they’re buying.
If you are interested in commissioning a basket, attending a workshop, or simply learning more about one of Ireland’s most overlooked traditional crafts, Cathy Hayden is the right person to contact.
Cathy Hayden Basketmaker
Drumcannon, Tramore, Co. Waterford
👍 Facebook: @cathyhaydenbasketmaker
