Newport bow maker scoops prestigious award

Bow maker scoops highest US accolade


Rowan Gallagher

A NEWPORT man has scooped three of the most prestigious awards for bow making at the Violin Society of America bow making competition.
Gary Leahy is a keen bow maker and has now been acknowledged as one of the best in the world after the recent announcement.
Bow making is a craft profession that is relatively new in Ireland has seen the craftsman achieve great success since it took off in 1996.
Speaking to The Mayo News last week Mr Leahy said how delighted he was with the win and how good it was for the profession not just in Mayo but in the country.
“It is the Violin Society of America and it is probably the largest bow making competition in the world - it carries a good bit of weight in the field. Everyone in the trade is trying to win medals in it and I like to think it acknowledges some sort of confidence in my work and musicians see that.
Gary runs his work shop from  his craft garage at his home and uses materials from every corner of the world to make his award winning bows to the highest quality.
“I’ve been making bows for about eight years now. It started when I went to New Zealand in 1996 when I was working as a tree surgeon and a guy I met there was doing restoration work so I did about five years of restoring there.
I was always interested in it and I met a great crafts man named Noel Burke
They are beautiful materials and to get the right material can be very difficult. It’s a small market in Ireland and it really wouldn’t be enough to sustain business but there are people all over the world looking for good bows.
Gary was trained by Noel Burke who used to run his business from Westport and is widely regarded as the best bow maker in the world having scooped the same award in years past along with a long list of others.
“It’s fantastic for the profession in Ireland, when I came here in 1996 there were actually no bow makers in the country. I spent about five years in Paris and then I came to know Gary after he came back from New Zealand and I gave him some training in bow making. I’m very proud of him,” he told The Mayo News.
A professionally made bow can cost up to €3,000 at the upper scale as they are made from select materials like Mongolian horse hair, ebony, ivory, lizard skin and even silver or gold - they can take over a week to make.