No building here is more his than the workshop: the heavy work was done in it, and the steel over it is his own. We’re putting it back, carefully, as a place to gather.
There are three stays here and a games room, but no single room big enough for everyone at once. The workshop can be that room. And when you think about what the workshop always was, that’s exactly right.
This was the busiest place for miles in my grandfather’s day. Fishermen rowed across Mulroy with anchors to be made; farmers came from across Fanad with gates and trailers; a good many men served their time in here. It was never quiet. My grandmother kept tea and biscuits going for the lot of them. We’re bringing it back to that.
No building here is more his than the workshop. The boat anchors were beaten out in here on a leg-pedal power hammer; a car’s underbody got welded from a pit in the floor; his old radio still hangs on the wall. He was the first welder in the area, and he taught himself from a manual, night after night, until he’d made his name on it.
When the old covering came off, his steelwork was standing there underneath: the trusses he welded and put up himself. The men who’d know still say it’s as good as the day it went on. As my mother puts it, when he welded a thing, it wouldn’t give. We were never going to touch the steel — the job was to look after it.
We took it back to the bare shell: the render walls, the windows to the fields and the bay, his steel overhead. Most of a restoration looks like this in the middle — emptier than where it started, before it’s better than where it started.
We didn’t add a thing to his frame; there was no need, the steel was sound. We’ve kept every bit of it and painted it black, so it stands out cleanly against the new Kingspan roof going on over the top. His structure, made sharp again — not replaced.
The new Kingspan roof is going on over the top — insulated panels, clean and bright on the underside — and the room’s come good already: dry, and far lighter than it had been in years. His steel below it, painted black against the white, carrying a roof that’ll see out another lifetime.
From the yard it sits as it always did, beside the games room, the new roof dark and clean over the old render. That’s where we are: the hard part — the roof, and his steel — done.
We’re not finished. Fitting out the inside is the next job, and it’s underway. There’s a reason we want it right, and not too far off: a gathering this family has in mind. But that’s a story for another day.
The games room next door — the old forge itself — is finished and open to everyone staying, free, around the clock. The workshop will join it when it’s ready. Until then, the whole story of the place, five generations of it, is on our story page.