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The Prince of Collier's Lane
Sean Keane talks to Kilkenny master craftsman Liam Costigan about his classic jewellery, his art and his enduring links with Denmark.
LIAM Costigan prefers to let his jewellry do his talking for him. After 40 years in the business he does not have to "waffle" like other less gifted gold or silversmiths. He possesses that essential element present in all great craft people - an eye for what is different, looks well, wears well and sells. It's an independence of spirit.
His workshop in the very heart of the city doubles as his shop. The Munster rugby team front row would have trouble fitting into it at the one time but it's that limitation of space which makes it so appealing to local people and to visitors. His work and that of Marie Larsen shines out from behind the showcases on Collier's Lane, a few yards off High Street, Kilkenny. They are elegant but understated, timeless and still contemporary.
Yet for Liam and Marie who hails from Denmark, it is a matter of 99.9% perspiration and 0.1% inspiration. Liam who chooses his words carefully agrees when Marie says there is too much talk of the artistic element in the craft process. "We are more like carpenters, fashioning raw pieces of metal into shapes and producing something that people will hopefully love and wear," she says with a refreshing honesty.
She agrees, a little reluctantly, that there is a strong artistic bent to the process and admits that she and Liam always start off with a sketch of what they want to create but feel the physicality, the nuts and bolts in the operation can be lost in the talk of creative endeavour. It's part of the ethos at Liam Costigan's, let your jewellry speak for you.
There is a real sense of life, character to the place and Marie, who is partner to another goldsmith, Neil Kelly of the Design Workshops, is a good foil for her boss, Liam, the lifeguard trainer who is one of the best liked people living in the city.
Liam says that after 28 years in the place he is not as patient with customers as Marie who is there for seven years and has an uncanny knack of being able to decipher what a particular customer may want in a commissioned piece. "We try to cater for the taste of the customer and that is why the customer is king," Liam says.
Totally devoid of any airs and graces, he cycles to work each morning and when you pass him he smiles and is always full of the joys of life no matter what. He is the eternal optimist and has to be in a business that has its ups and downs, For him there have been few bad times except for five years ago.
After 22 blissful years on Collier's Lane he was robbed at gun point. As well as being roughed around, there was a very real chance he would lose his life as tragic post master Alan Cunniffe did a few years later in another armed robbery in the city.
He lost all his best stock, well over 30,000 euro worth. Psychologically it knocked the stuffing out of him and as he said himself; "the banks were no help when I needed them." However family, local people, business acquaintances and friends helped him to get through. He is uncomfortable talking about the experience but finds it hard to forget because he had to install a CCTV surveillance system after the robbery. While he was being threatened with his life by the gun man he thought of his family and what they meant to him.
As he speaks cautiously about the incident, there is something else, he doesn't say it but it's in his eyes. After gentle prodding, he tells how he lost his own father Billy when he was just nine years of age. From Ballyfoyle, Billy Costigan worked in the brewery and people who knew him told me that he was like Liam, kind to a fault with a sunny disposition. After the tragedy, his late mother Catherine, originally a member of the Tynan family from Muckalee, was forced to go back to work to help raise her young family of four. It is something he doesn't dwell on and he quickly changes the direction of the interview.
In the immediate wake of the robbery he received a real boost when a local business man with a few shops on High Street walked in and handed Liam an envelope with 1,000 euro in it. He didn't say anything, a look suffices to say that if the tables were turned, Liam would do the same for him. It tells you as much about Liam as it does about his benefactor who lives close-by.
He said that act of Christian kindness gave him the strength on that morning to go on. Others were equally giving to him and Liam isn't a man to forget that. As we sit in the back-room that also serves as eating area and part of the workshop, surrounded by the tools of his craft and by large machines like metal polishers and other strange looking yokes, we watch the television monitors of the lane and shop.
A young woman with a pram, presses the buzzer and enters after the lock is released from inside by Marie. She enquires about an earring she lost and which Liam is remaking for her. He shows her the work in progress and assures that it will be completed by next week. She leaves satisfied.
Liam is so self -effacing you would be forgiven for taking him for granted. One of the city's finest crafts people, his relaxed and gentle nature belies an inner character of huge ability, determination and humanity.
His workshop on the lane is one of the reasons why people love visiting the city. Just a few yards off High Street, complete with wooden framed shop front it sits well with the streetscape and has an alluring appeal.
In the window, a pendant catches my eye. It has a mint green (tourmaline stone I'm told) with a gold pear drop background. It is the end of the piece that is intriguing - three diamonds set in white gold creating a triangular affect.
It is an exquisite piece and will not stay long in the window. Liam looks at it and you can see the pride he has for his craft.
Liam Costigan started life as an apprentice with a company called Rionore based at the gate lodge on the Castle Blunden estate, a few miles outside the city. After three years it transferred to Dublin and unwilling to pack up and head for the capital, he came back to the and completed his apprenticeship with the renowned Rudolph Heltzel on Patrick Street.
Denmark has played a major part in his life and in his craft. After qualifying as a gold and silversmith he went to Copenhagen in 1973, after Ireland joined the then EEC now the EU.
While doing his apprenticeship in Kilkenny a few years earlier he met with Helga Max Andersen and the Dane was a vital contact for him when he went to the Danish capital.
He found work with one of the largest jewellry manufacturers in that country, Ole Lynggard. He quickly rose up through the ranks and did the master models for different pieces of jewellry used to make the moulds for the mass production of the particular, ring, or pendant he made.
"It had to be absolutely perfect because any imperfections would be shown up in the moulds and that would have been disastrous," he says. He spent two years there and it gave him an insight into how business worked.
He came home and joined the staff of the ill fated Kilkenny Design Centre. In 1975 when a place became available at graduate school for goldsmiths again in Demark, this time in Klampengorg, he jumped at the chance to go back to learn more and to enjoy the Danish way of life.
Here he learned the most-up-to-date methods, the latest designs and more importantly advanced stone settings and other techniques which added to his already growing list of accomplishments.
He then returned to the Design Centre and 28 years ago took the bold step of opening his own workshop. He has become an important cog in the craft industry in Kilkenny even if he is not on the official Kilkenny Craft Trail.
More importantly he is a Kilkenny man born and bred carrying on a fine tradition of which the city and county can be proud.
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Tuesday 22 May 2012
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