Woodturner Br Ciarán Forbes dies aged 79

The death has occurred of the Benedictine monk and renowned woodturner Br Ciarán Forbes.

He died suddenly on New Year's Day in Glenstal Abbey, Co Limerick. Aged 79, he entered Glenstal in 1961 and celebrated 60 years a monk in 2021.

His interest in woodturning began when two boys in the Abbey school brought a lathe to the carpentry workshop in 1970.

He was to help lead a renaissance in Irish wood crafts over following decades. His interests were broad but music and singing including Gregorian chant were a central part of his life.

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The English woodturner, Richard Raffan, was an early mentor. He cajoled the Devon-based craftsman into allowing him to rough turn his wood for three months while learning the finer techniques of turning large bowls.

“I built up great confidence in tool-turning and in understanding the exigence of the line. The visual and tactile sense is what I value most in the bowls,” Br Ciarán noted.

In a 1996 piece in The Irish Times, he observed: “One of the most exciting aspects of my work is discovering new timbers, their colours and figurings. Going into the woodsheds at Glenstal is for me like discovering valuable old bottles in an abandoned cottage.” Glenstal provided such exotic offerings as tulip trees, handkerchief trees, monkey puzzles, Californian redwoods and eucalyptus.

He regarded as a career highlight his exhibition staged by DesignYard, where well-known personalities chose craftspeople. The now President Michael D Higgins chose him because he had one of his bowls. "I had to make an artist's statement and in it I talked about Michael D, and his total integrity, and the convergence of his politics and his ideals and his poetry. I wrote that I hoped that my work had a similar integrity – that simple flowing unbroken line," he recalled.

“It is with sadness that I learned of the death of Br Ciarán Forbes of Glenstal Abbey. He will be greatly missed, not only as a talented woodturner but also a true friend,” Mr Higgins said on Monday.

Asked how the commercial aspect of his work balanced with the commitment of being a monk, he responded: “I am unashamedly in the commercial world and am at the same time contributing to the religious community financially through selling the bowls. St Benedict said we are truly monks if we live, by the work of our hands.”