Watch: Niamh loving life as a silversmith

‘’I’ve done so many different things, but the silversmithing, working with silver hammering, texturing it, beating the result of it to get these lovely organic shapes. I just love it. It’s really my thing.’’

Niamh Morrison, from Cork, started her working life in architecture, and for some years, she worked with horses.

When her children went to college and travelled, she decided to work on her passion in silversmithing.

‘’I’ve been doing it for 12 years, I was always making, I started reading books on silversmithing, and that was it.’’

Ms Morrison recycles copper, electrical cabling, car piping, and sea glass and works with turquoise to make jewellery.

She loves working from home and being her own boss.

‘’I thoroughly enjoy myself, but it is maybe 60 hours a week. Because you get so involved. You just come in here into this room, and then boom. It’s nighttime. And it’s brilliant.”

Brexit caused some problems as she previously relied on some materials imported from the UK.

“I am doing my best to work my way around this. But yeah, it’s making it more expensive.”

She said she sometimes struggles to find new ideas as she has to create unique and different forms every day.

‘’It’s just sometimes, it’s just your brain goes dead. So I don’t just sit down and keep doing the same thing. That doesn’t interest me. I like to make new stuff all the time.”

Before the pandemic, Ms Morrison relied on markets to spread the word of her business, but has since learned how to use social media for marketing.

‘’I do everything, from photography to social media, to buying the material to the selling, answering emails, talking to customers, so it’s all down to me.’’

She believes that people have started to appreciate how handmade things take much time and effort.

‘’I think people have more appreciation for handmade, I think, through Covid, people decided that they had to help their own, they had to support whoever they could.”