One-off originals

MADE IN IRELAND:The National Crafts Fair is open at the RDS this weekend, and there are fairs and designers all over the country that deserve support, writes DEIRDRE MCQUILLAN

RECESSION BRINGS PEOPLE together and these handmade gifts are tempting incentives to buy Irish this Christmas and keep jobs at home. Both the inexpensive jewellery and the knitted scarves featured here are by designers who started in cooperatives, one in Cow’s Lane in Temple Bar and the other originally in the Loft in Powerscourt (which celebrates its fourth anniversary this year).

Ann Tyrrell, a former Montessori teacher whose brother Charlie is a well-known Irish painter, started making jewellery six years ago and hasn’t looked back in her new career. She’s part of an eclectic group of stallholders who came together in the market and now have their own unit in Temple Bar called Cow’s Lane Designer Studio, beside the bakery, stocking inexpensive jewellery and other items.

Her necklaces, like the one shown above, and other jewellery pieces are made from freshwater pearls, silver, gemstones and quirky components, such as papier-mâché beads made from cartoons or newspapers.

Nearby, Laura Caffrey and Claire Grennan, two NCAD graduates, operate the Irish Design Shop (irishdesignshop.ie), featuring knitter Heather Finn (whose colourful scarves are shown here) and 23 other makers from all around Ireland at prices from €2.50 and €4 for cards and notebooks, up to €2,600 for a timber cabinet. Both their Temple Bar shop and online site feature cushions, bags, scarves, mugs, jewellery, plates and cheeseboards.

Elsewhere in Dublin, inexpensive Irish-made Christmas gifts caught our eye in Coco Atelier on Drury Street – miniature chocolate trees and cones (left) in gift boxes, for €14.50 and €12 each. The chocolate trees, in dark or white chocolate, are made with crushed almonds and puffed rice for extra crunch, while the cones that look like miniature dunce’s caps are made entirely of velvety dark chocolate studded with either spheres of red-coated or gilded dark chocolate.

Coco Atelier has just opened a second shop in House of Fraser in Dundrum Town Centre, Dublin 14, where it can be found on Level 3.

The trees and cones will last for at least two months. Sweet gifts in every sense.