At home on Ireland's rugged west coast with polymath creative Aoibheann MacNamara
'Let’s try to do our best’ is Aoibheann MacNamara’s mantra, an ethos she aims to apply to all aspects of her life. Hailing originally from Donegal, Aoibheann has lived in Galway on Ireland’s west coast for the past 22 years. It is here that she has been building a career that revolves around a passion for heritage, conservation and authenticity – specifically in relation to food, textiles and, more recently, a wildly remote national park in neighbouring County Clare known as the Burren.
At the kitchen table of her house in Galway – a former carpenter’s workshop and garage she has remodelled into both a home and studio – she cuts a striking figure, her bleached blonde mohican and thin stripe of bright red lipstick belying a deep-rooted Irish warmth and hospitable nature. The house that she shares with her 17-year-old son Oni, along with golden retriever Puffy and tabby cat Yoda, is a simple, functional and light-filled space in which polished concrete, brick, wood and steel are purposeful reminders of the building’s industrial past. The interiors palette is broadly muted save for the odd pop of red. It’s a favourite colour consistently woven through the three principal strands of Aoibheann’s life – her ‘slow trilogy’, as she likes to call it.
If food and her restaurant in Galway are the first part of this trilogy (more of which shortly), part two is housed in the studio adjoining her home. This is The Tweed Project, a slow textile label she co-created 11 years ago with costume designer Triona Lillis, to help to preserve indigenous Irish tweed, wool and linen in the face of cheap, foreign replicas. Linen comes from Wexford and Aran wool from Kerry Woollen Mills, while the tweed and the mohair are largely from Donegal. From these are fashioned dresses, gilets, jumpers, blankets, coats, scarves and cushions – all made in Galway, slowly and by hand. ‘We like to add texture and subvert tradition,’ says Aoibheann, modelling several pieces of The Tweed Project’s collection and teasing the tassels of a brightly ω coloured cushion. ‘These are remnants from the cutting process that would otherwise go to waste,’ she explains. ‘We try to use every morsel of fabric.’
Aoibheann greets everyone she encounters with a smile as we leave what she describes as the ‘more real’ corner of town for the beating heart of Galway, crossing the roiling River Corrib just before it joins the sea. On the far side is the Long Walk, a promenade of brightly coloured houses facing west towards the sunset. Here, too, is Ard Bia at Nimmos, Aoibheann’s restaurant and the first passion project of her trilogy. She launched Ard Bia in 2001 in Ardara in Donegal, after her return to Ireland from a year-long stint at Babington House, the Somerset hotel of the Soho House brand. She describes the group’s founder Nick Jones as ‘one of the most significant people in my life; he showed me – through his own incredible commitment – how it was possible to work for myself’.
The simple idea behind Ard Bia – in a town that has 10 pubs – was to provide a place where people could connect over a plate of good food: ‘There’s an emotional, ω transformative element to food.’ This is what she tapped into by serving wholesome, seasonal produce from local suppliers. After two years, drawn by the prospect of a ‘more culturally interesting life’, she made the move to Galway. Thus, Ard Bia was re-established in an ancient stone building on Galway’s ‘prom’. In her signature style, the doors and windows are painted bright red.
Now, 22 years on, Ard Bia is as popular as ever – a landmark in Galway’s culinary evolution that undoubtedly contributed to the area being chosen as European Region of Gastronomy in 2018. A young team, led by head chef Thomas Corrigan, works tirelessly across the restaurant’s two floors delivering breakfast, lunch and dinner to those lucky enough to secure a table. Aoibheann is often there, welcoming guests, curating exhibitions for the walls and ensuring that the restaurant’s sustainable practices – waste management, in particular – never slip.
Downtime seems hard to come by, but Aoibheann has a remedy for this, one that she plans to share with others and one that forms the third part of her trilogy: a slow escape. An hour’s drive south of Galway lies the desolate, windswept reaches of the Burren – an extraordinary rolling, karst landscape, where a unique ecosystem of flowers and plants thrives among glacial-era limestone moulded into giant slabs of rock. It is desolate, even on a sunny day, but for Aoibheann, the Burren is ‘a place apart’, a place where, in rescuing a derelict 32-acre farmstead, she has forged a deep connection with nature and also discovered an immeasurable sense of peace.
Reached via a bumpy, narrow lane bordered by stone walls and drifts of wild roses, Summerage is a conversion of the original old farmhouse to which the eco architect Mike Haslam has added a more contemporary building. Icelandic in style, it has lime-rendered, charcoal-coloured walls, picture windows framing the landscape and sky, and, as one would expect, bursts of bright red – most notably in the corrugated roof.
The interior with two bedrooms (a further bedroom occupies an outbuilding) is characteristically pared back. White walls displaying Aoibheann’s own photographs of Dungeness (the late film maker Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage was a huge source of inspiration) offset by bold pops of colour in cushions, rugs and furniture. Outside, a vegetable garden provides regular produce to Ard Bia – ‘Is there anything more joyful than a garden?’ exclaims Aoibheann, gathering up basketfuls of salad leaves. There is also a small apiary that produces delicious Irish honey. Only the cows are missing, having returned to lower pastures for the summer after months on the high limestone plateau for winterage – an age-old, reverse-grazing practice peculiar to the Burren, which inspired the name of Aoibheann’s farm.
‘I would like Summerage to be a retreat where people can withdraw into themselves,’ she says of her plan to rent the house out occasionally. In the meantime, though, there is clearly nowhere that Aoibheann would rather be than here – feet up, watching the sun set, firmly ensconced in life’s slow lane.
The Tweed Project: thetweedproject.com | Ard Bia: ardbia.com
TARAN WILKHU1/7With her 17-year-old son Oni.
TARAN WILKHU2/7On the wall of Oni’s bedroom, a framed artwork of a giant sponge from Hydra hangs next to a striking collage of Pantone colours.
TARAN WILKHU3/7Aoibheann at Ard Bia with Camille Le Saux, whose photographs have been exhibited in the restaurant; she wears a dress and gilet from The Tweed Project.
TARAN WILKHU4/7With Galway Slow Food member Ernie Deacy, outside the specialist food store he runs with his family.
TARAN WILKHU5/7Head chef Thomas Corrigan (left) with café manager Joshua Tammaro and daytime head chef Liga Jarovoja.
TARAN WILKHU6/7At Summerage – Aoibheann’s ‘slow escape’ – which is an hour’s drive south of Galway and was built with the help of eco architect Mike Haslam on the site of a derelict farmhouse.
TARAN WILKHU7/7Inspired by the style of Icelandic houses and their traditional red roofs, Summerage stands out against the stark landscape of the Burren. The dry-stone walls were created using local limestone.
