From teacher to chef to blade smith, furniture-maker and co-owner of the Under One Roof maker school in Ennistymon, Sam Gleeson has lived an interesting life and wants to turn that pursuit of knowledge and skills into valuable skills and experiences for all.
Established by Gleeson and his wife chef Niamh Fox, Under One Roof is a creative arts and crafts making space in beautiful west Clare, offering transformative educational experiences.
In a nutshell it is a space created for makers by makers. The venture is led by Gleeson, a blade smith, furniture maker and chef, his wife Niamh Fox, also a chef, pottery maker and horticulturalist and Stephen O’Reilly a graphic designer and web builder, not to mention a panoply of spoon carvers, luthiers, guitar makers, jewellers, metal makers, musicians and artists.
“This is for anyone with an inclination to learn and possibly turn their curiosity into a passion and maybe even a career and hopefully we will inspire the next generation of makers”
A not-for-profit social enterprise Under One Roof is focused on creating training experiences for everyone from transition year students to holidaymakers from all over the world who want a holiday in Ireland with a difference. Instead of twee memories, they want to come back with creative skills, memorable experiences and new friendships.
Located at a 17th century farmhouse surrounded by old orchards, Under One Roof is the process of metamorphosising from a family home to include a range of creative spaces. It will include a school that will also have rentable art studio spaces and two old stone buildings will be renovated into a cookery school and guest accommodation.
Cutting a dash through life and learning
Cambridge native Gleeson’s route to west Clare and a career as a chef and blademaker can be best described as circuitous.
“I began my career as a chef, then a primary school teacher before moving to west Africa and my sole drive was finding inspiration to build and create,” he said, speaking ahead of the Showcase Ireland exhibition at the RDS in January 2025.
“What we are dreaming of with the school here is offering inspiring classes from cookery to arts and crafts. This is for anyone with an inclination to learn and possibly turn their curiosity into a passion and maybe even a career and hopefully we will inspire the next generation of makers.”
An initial interest in cooking led to him becoming a trained chef, working all over the world including Australia and the friendships he made along the way led to him helping Aisling Rogerson and Luca D’Alfonso build their café The Fumbally in Dublin 8.
“My chef skills were honed in Australia when I worked in a restaurant doing everything. They said: ‘Okay, if you want to eat dinner, you can have any dinner you want off the menu, but you have to make it slowly. They taught me how to cook their menu by making my own dinner! They were really very kind to me and really opened my eyes to a lot of new stuff.”
On his return to the UK he availed of a then Government training scheme aimed at attracting more men into the teaching profession and become a primary school teacher which in time led to him establishing an outdoor education centre. Unfortunately the business didn’t work out and so he decided to take up a friend’s offer to come to Ghana to provide teacher training as part of development projects there. “Basically I got to live on a palm-fringed tropical beach in a little bamboo hut. It was a nice, calmer existence where I swam a lot, ate fresh fish and lived without electricity.”
Arriving in Dublin around 2012 from Ghana was a bit like visiting another planet. “Dublin was in a kind of post-financial crash slump but there were amazing, creative people trying new things with food.”
He and the Fumbally Café founders supported the emerging business by doing catering events for brands like Jameson. It was while working at a Ballymaloe-hosted food and literary festival that he first met his wife, also a chef, who was there with friends. “Every time we had a break I would go and sit with them.” Niamh went back to London to work and a year had passed before they met again at the same food festival.
“We had just finished building our stand and then this van drives into the big agricultural shed we were in and hits one of our sculptures. The next thing Niamh jumps out of the van all apologetic and I was like ‘Oh my God, it’s you!” The rest they say is history.
After reconnecting at the festival they started dating, eventually married and started a family. Despite enjoying the buzz of Dublin, Sam and Niamh decided they wanted a change and bought their home in Ennistymon in pursuit of a calmer but more creative existence.
For makers, by makers
Gleeson’s love for making things began in his late dad’s garage at home in England where his father would fashion engine parts for old tractors, racing cars and even aeroplanes.
“My dad was a machinist. His workshop was full of all sorts of weird and wonderful machines. When he died I was going through the workshop and I found this really cool butcher’s knife wedged down the back of a machine. The handle was splitting off it, but I could see that it was really old but really good Sheffield steel.”
He had befriended Fingal Ferguson, a knifemaker and they discussed the possibility of restoring his father’s knife. This sparked Gleeson’s interest in blade smithing and they started making knives together.
“I’ve always liked the idea of like Japanese knives in particular, because there’s a very important job for each knife. We’ve kind of bastardised the knife in the western world where we just want something with a sharp point and that can cut vegetables or meat. Whereas in Japan, the intricacies of detail of like, okay, I need a knife for taking the skin off of an eel, but then I need another knife but for slicing. I like the attention to detail and the finesse of what that brings.”
While working at a food festival, Food on the Edge, which was run by JP McMahon, he and Ferguson were talking with Nathan Outlaw, a Michelin Star chef from England who had a request for a specific set of knives. “Fingal just turned around to me and said to Nathan ‘This is Sam, he’s going to make you your knives’. At this point I hadn’t sold a knife at all. He started taking about what he wanted and I made him three little knives. He was really happy with them and posted pictures up on Instagram. And all of I sudden people were asking me to make them knives. Lo and behold, I became a knife maker.”
His ambition for the Under One Roof is to hopefully spark similar pivots in people’s lives. “We do lessons for transition year students and we have a community-based workshop for local people who can come and learn a craft. We also provide for people who are willing to pay to learn a new skill. I teach knife-making. I’ve another friend who is a spoon maker. We have basket makers and we’ve even got a wooden surfboard maker who wants to come and teach. Niamh will be doing some cookery classes and we’ve other chefs who want to come and teach.”
Being located just a 40-minute drive from Shannon makes Under One Roof a nice alternative for US tourists who would like add a new skill to their experiences in Ireland. Gleeson is collaborating with one of the founders of the iconic Dead Rabbit cocktail bar in New York who is now running an Irish craft tour company.
“This is amazing for us as it means we can focus on providing the experiences and impart our skills to people who want to learn.”
- Showcase Ireland, the nation’s creative expo, is marking 50 years and will hold its next exhibition at the RDS on 19 to 21 January 2025, click herehttps://showcaseireland.com/newfront to learn more
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