Athenry News & Views Winter 2025

Athenry News & Views

Daniel Gill Furnituremaker

By Sean Cleary

Sometime around 1978, Christy Howley was walking towards me on Old Church Street. He put out his hand, stopped me, and told me a joke… then he walked away laughing, and I walked the other way laughing. It was one of those moments unique to Athenry — but perhaps even more so, unique to Christy Howley himself. He was a raconteur, a joker, an actor, and a historian. But he was also a craftsman — one of the old school — working in a trade that even then seemed to have a limited future. Christy made tables, chairs, and stools in his workshop behind his house on Cross Street. He had many loyal customers and was clearly highly skilled in managing his raw materials. He knew where to source them, how to prepare them, and what to use for specific purposes. For Christy, it was both a business and a calling. Everyone knew him as a tradesman and a joiner — a man who worked in Athenry from the 1940s through to the 1970s. In later years, Paddy and Gabe Gardiner carried on that same tradition at their joinery in The Square, Athenry, from the 1960s through to the 1990s. They were experts in woodsmanship — managing forests, coppicing, felling, drying — seeing the process through to the finished product. Whether it was doors, fence posts, gates, roofing timbers, or even coffins, all the local builders knew they could rely on the Gardners for top-quality, locally sourced material. In the early 2000s, Daniel Gill set up his workshop and business, following in the footsteps of those traditional craftsmen. Working with his friend Steven Burke, also from Athenry, and others locally, Daniel developed the skills and expertise to source and shape raw materials into the exceptional products he’s now known for. Daniel chose a path that many might have shied away from in an age of degrees, study, travel, and easier routes to income. A talented musician — particularly on guitar — and a competitive racquetball and badminton player, Daniel decided early on that the academic route wasn’t

for him. Instead, he chose to graft and master a craft, developing a skill set that’s nothing short of exceptional in the modern era. The Howley and Gardner workshops once had many streams of income — preparing and selling structural timber, crafting items for builders and farmers, and producing essential household goods like coffins, chairs, and tables. Daniel has carried that spirit into the present day, creating contemporary versions of 19th-century classic furniture as well as bespoke, custom-designed pieces for clients. His raw materials are sourced locally and kiln-dried in his own workshop, using Irish