'I do feel really humbled': Cork's Knitting Map gets tangled up in debate on American values 

Once dismissed as the work of 'a pack of oul biddies knitting', the creation of a group of Cork women has maintained a life beyond its origins during the Capital of Culture tenure 

Women working on The Knitting Map at St Lukes Church, Cork in 2005: Lucy Roche, Maureen McGrath, Nicola Cannon, Geradline Creaner and Tracy Kidd. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

UCC Professor of Creative Practice Jools Gilson is just back from a week-long stay in West Virginia, a heavily Republican state in the Appalachian region of the American South.

Gilson was there on a residency associated with an exhibition called Mapping Climate Change: The Knitting Map and the Tempestry Project, which runs until mid-December at the Art Museum of West Virginia University in Morgantown.