Kate and Alan Burrows discuss their passion
Throughout history, people have used the materials around them to create everyday objects with practical uses. The same can be said today with Westcountry Willows, set up in Ballinlough by husband and wife, Kate and Alan Burrows, who weave beautiful baskets and crafts for every imaginable use.
“I love it. It’s my life. I live and breathe it and I dream about it and I can’t turn my brain off from it. It’s just my absolute passion,” Kate revealed. In fact, she added, she and her husband have recently returned from a holiday in Spain, where they attended a Basket Festival.
“That’s how obsessed I am. I can’t not weave every day. If I don’t weave every day, then I don’t feel right,” she laughed.
The festival itself was attended by people from all over Europe who do different types of weaving, using whatever plants grow around them. That’s how weaving has always been, according to Kate. It’s been indigenous people using whatever they had around them to make the items they needed for everyday use.
“That’s what I love about basketry,” said Kate, “you can do it anywhere and you can use what you’ve got around you and make it into a useful item that‘s used every day and all of our ancestors would’ve done it.”
For Kate and Alan, what grows around them is the willow they planted when they moved to Ballinlough approximately five years ago and started up Westcountry Willows.
“We grow all the willow here. So it’s next level sustainable really, because it’s regenerated as well. Alan takes care of growing all the willow and you harvest it every winter and cut it right down to the ground and then it all grows back again. You get 20 more rods growing on each plant every year,” Kate explained.
“We grow about seven different varieties. So all of that comes from our garden. You get all different colours: purples, oranges, yellows, blues, greens, browns. And we also advise people on growing their own willow and we provide cuttings.”
Before moving to Roscommon, Kate and Alan lived in Somerset, UK, which is “basketry central”, so Kate feels that weaving and basketry are in her roots.
“I had a friend who was growing a bit of basketry willow and doing a bit of basketry, and it’s something I’ve always wanted to get into. It’s really difficult to learn. So when I found out my friend was doing it, I pestered her and pestered her until she actually sat down and taught me one day. And then I just became addicted and I bought every book and soaked up every video that I could find and every bit of information and sort of carried on teaching myself really for the next few years,” said Kate.
“And when my mum died in Somerset, we naturally had her buried in a willow coffin because she was a Somerset lady, and it just felt right to do that. And at the time I just fell in love with the look of it and how it felt so much less sterile than a lot of the coffins that we use nowadays with the gold handles and nailed down lids. And the willow coffins just look and feel and smell like more of a nest.
“It feels like you’re wrapping your loved one up in a nest. It just felt so much more natural and like a better way of doing it. And I knew from that point that I wanted to go on and make willow coffins. So I’ve sort of been perfecting my skills over the last few years and honing them in to prepare me for making coffins, which we’ve started doing this year.”
In fact, Kate and Alan entered their willow coffins into the Irish Business Design Challenge Awards this year. They hadn’t properly started making coffins on a large scale at that point but when they won the award for the Micro category, they were thrilled.
“They asked us to bring a coffin with us to the award ceremony. We didn’t know we’d won. And so we had to get this coffin through Dublin. Alan carried it on his shoulders, walking through the streets of Dublin with this coffin,” Kate laughed.
“It was the first one we’d ever made. We had to put it together for this ceremony, not knowing that we’d won and all these other people came up on the screen. We were sat in the audience for this presentation and all these sort of flashy Instagram perfect people were coming up on the screen that all had made jewellery and all looking dolled up and everything. And there was me with a pile of sticks coming up on the screen. I thought ‘we’ve got no chance of winning’. And then they called our name out and I just burst into tears and couldn’t believe it.”
The prize money of €15,000 has proven very useful in furthering Kate and Alan’s dream of making sustainable, willow coffins. They have since put funding into doing up their barn to turn it into a coffin workshop.
“I make them on the veranda at the moment,” said Kate, “and we’ve made quite a few and posted them around the world and several people in Ireland. And one of the things that we do is we invite people to come and weave their own coffin if they want to. Or they can come and weave their loved one’s coffin. We’ve had several people with cancer and other terminal illnesses who’ve come and woven their own coffin with us, and they take it home and often use it as a blanket box or something at the end of their bed until they’re ready to use it.
“So that’s one of the things that makes our business unique. It’s a bit of a cathartic thing that we do for people and it helps them a lot. And a lot of people seem to like choosing their own coffin and being involved in it and not leaving anything for their loved ones to worry about whilst also caring for the planet as well.”
The husband and wife team take their coffins around a lot of shows across the country and often get reactions of shock or surprise from people who see them weaving coffins.
“A lot of people sort of try and drag their older relatives past and don’t want them to see it, but you often find it’s the older relative who comes back and wants to chat to us about it and wants to know everything to do with it and rings us later on and actually wants us to make their coffin. We’ve got quite a few older people who’ve asked their undertaker if they can look after it till they’re ready and things like that,” Kate explained. But it isn’t a morbid practice, she stresses. In fact, it’s almost like injecting a bit of life into death by getting involved and allowing people to prepare for it in their own way.
“People don’t realise that they have these options available to them. And one of the things we’re very keen on promoting is making people aware of different options. There are alternative ways of doing things,” she said.
“People would’ve woven coffins out of willow 200 years ago. They would’ve wrapped their loved ones in an important shroud that the family would’ve maybe sewn together. And the whole family would’ve taken care of the process together and been a part of it. Like a lot of things in life now, we’re removed from it all and we’re not involved in all those processes. Years ago, our families would’ve laid the bodies out on the kitchen table and cleaned them down together and taken care of all of that.
“And people would’ve sung songs together and buried things with the person that were important to them and bits of cloth that were important to them. And it was very much a community and family orientated thing of care and love that people would’ve carried out together.
“And inviting people in to help weave is kind of going back to all of that, people being actually involved and not running away from the whole subject, but actually being involved in something important and caring that is that final thing you can do for people you care about and for yourself if you choose to. And a lot of people do seem to be wanting to make those choices now.”
As well as their beautiful, award-winning coffins, Alan and Kate weave a range of other baskets for everyday use – log baskets, bassinets, even Moses baskets for babies so they’re taking care of everything from the cradle to the grave.
“We do a lot of sculpture as well,” said Kate. “We did some big arches at Belvedere House back in the summer. And we were also at Bloom weaving with children in the children’s area for the whole week. We repaired some curlew sculptures back in the spring that had come apart a little bit. We’ve had lots of big jobs this year, so we do a bit of everything really. And we can build living structures and all that sort of thing. So yeah, basically we can make anything out of willow.”
But it’s not just about making the craft. In fact, Alan and Kate are keen to pass on the ancient tradition of weaving and enjoy doing so via a range of workshops and classes that take place in a range of locations across the country.
“We get hired by schools and libraries and community groups, old people’s homes, centres where people want to learn. It seems to be quite popular, with people wanting to do natural crafts that are sustainable,” said Kate.
“It’s great fun and you don’t need many tools. You just need a good pair of secateurs and that’s it really, and some sticks, and then you can make your own basket, which will last you a lifetime.”
For more information on workshops provided by Westcountry Willows, see www.westcountrywillows.com.
