IN FOCUS: Shearing Sheep with Cushendale

Travel & Design Musings from our Founder

A journey through the Irish countryside ended in Kilkenny, Ireland, at Cushendale Woolen Mills’ annual Sheep Shearing Festival. Our founder, Jesse James, witnessed the season’s first shearing of the Galway sheep — a protected Irish breed that is central to Cushendale’s storied handcrafted textiles. 

In operation since 1778, Cushendale is a steadfast steward of slow crafting and generational techniques. 

“When Miriam Cushendale first mentioned her sheep shearing festival to me at our Shoppe Object Paris launch back in January, I paid attention. I had been planning a road trip to Ireland with my husband, my mother and my daughter, and decided to use it as an anchor to build around. 

When our three generations showed up in the mill yard in the tiny hamlet of Graiguenamanagh — a word I would spend the better part of two days attempting to pronounce — I think Miriam was genuinely surprised we’d actually come! We wouldn’t have missed it.”

— Jesse James

“There’s something quietly radical about a business that controls every step of what it makes — from the fleece to the finished cloth. Miriam and her husband have inherited not just a business but a responsibility — to a process, to a community, to a way of doing things that the world keeps trying to find shortcuts around. They haven’t taken a single one.”

“There’s nothing quite like visiting our exhibitors at their source. Cushendale represents exactly the spirit we build Shoppe Object around, and moments like this remind me how proud I am to have makers like Miriam as part of our community.”

Photography © Jesse James