Knife making is far from a dying craft

Carol O’Callaghan meets a man on the cutting edge of craftsmanship who is also the entrepreneur behind the Gubbeen range of cured meat products.

The knife is a curious combination of usefulness and danger, even from its most primitive beginnings, when it was no more than a flint honed by our prehistoric forebears, it was rendered a sufficiently sharp and effective enough implement to carve up a woolly mammoth.

In the main, it’s now a mass-produced household item, but there are a few dedicated craft makers who are still honing metal and wood into knives for functions ranging from hunting to food preparation.