Finnish lace artist, Tarmo Thorström discusses his inspiration for Lace Matrix 2024: Cyclogenesis.

Turn on your smartphone GPS, put on your headphones, and set off to discover a time when lacemaking wasn’t a hobby, but a matter of survival for an entire community. Join a cast of characters to experience immersive stories, sounds and specially recorded music, on this audio walk with a twist. Produced by Ed Coulson for Headford Lace Project.

Headford Lace Project have collaborated with local songwriters and musicians, The Whileaways, to compose a song inspired by Headford Lace to bring the memory of our local lacemakers back into the public consciousness.

As part of the Irish Government’s Keep Well campaign Switching Off and Being Creative strand, an innovative Sláintecare funded collaboration between Design & Crafts Council Ireland (DCCI) and Healthy Ireland provided funding to HLP to create a new lace bench for the town of Headford.

2021 was the year that the Lace Matrix project with Róisín de Buitléar was finally installed in St. George’s Square, Headford. It was a long journey but we are really pleased that the finished piece is now safely in its forever home. It was fascinating to see the project progress from an idea on paper to a completed physical work that showcases the best of Headford.

This award-winning, feature-length documentary was produced by Ed Coulson for Claremorris Community Radio. It reveals how a group of women in Headford stumbled across a mostly forgotten history of lacemaking in their town, and how a tiny fragment of lace became the starting point for countless cultural and regenerative events and projects – and created a sisterhood along the way.

The Space Between was an exhibition of contemporary lace art organized by HLP in Headford, and curated by Fiona Harrington, which ran from 10 to 18 October 2020. The lace pieces were displayed in the windows of local businesses and viewed from the street.

We are excited to announce an exciting collaboration with Drumadore and Claran Theatre.

Local artist JoJo Hynes created a video installation at the Angler's Rest in Headford for Culture Night, kindly supported by Culture Night through Galway County Council. The video, entitled 'Forget Me Not', commemorated thirteen girls and young women who left Ireland for Australia and Tasmania under the Assisted Migration Scheme in the nineteenth century.

Summer 2019 sees a new and exciting collaboration in Headford, Co. Galway as Headford Lace Project works with Headford Music Works to produce a new orchestral piece inspired by the heritage of lace making in the town.

Headford Lace Project in collaboration with Headford Environment Group has established a Lace Garden at the Community Orchard. The Environment Group planted a lace-inspired garden of white flowering plants surrounded by a fence made of lace-bobbin shaped posts, and Headford Lace Project commissioned a park bench, the design of which is inspired by Headford Lace.

Headford Lace Project has been instrumental in the instalment of heritage signs around the town. We collaborated with the Headford Environment Group for one at the Community Orchard. We also installed this one on New Street, where many of the original lacemakers once lived. This was achieved with support from Galway County Council Heritage Office under the Community Support Scheme.

Under the auspices of the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland and the Council of Irish Fashion Designers, Headford Lace Project was delighted to collaborate with Galway designer Niamh Daniels. 

Headford Lace Project collaborated with Headford Men's Shed and local master woodturner, Ambrose O'Halloran, to run a workshop on turning wooden lace bobbins.