A rich history of storytelling and self-sufficient island living have fostered an exciting contemporary design scene in Ireland, Irish Design Week head Tom Watts tells Dezeen in this interview.
Launched in 2022 and taking place for the fourth time this week, Irish Design Week is in its infancy. Yet the community that led to the country-wide event’s inception has been brewing for years, explained the head of the festival.
“It has existed for decades in different iterations,” said Watts, who is also head of design for Design & Crafts Council Ireland.
“It’s existed through different people with different approaches and initiatives down through the years, but this [edition] is the first time that it has been government-funded and backed,” he added.
“There’s just something in the Irish psyche”
Much has been said in recent times about the high quality of Irish literature and performing arts. But the distinctive spirit of Irish creativity is alive and well in the design scene too, explained Watts.
“Ireland is absolutely having a moment,” he said. “I think there’s just something in the Irish psyche linked to a weird way of thinking about things. We go at things with a storytelling approach.”
“Ireland is actually quite a small place,” he continued. “We’re the population of Greater Manchester. And that can be an amazing thing, because everybody tends to be connected to everyone else.”
Considering more characteristics of the contemporary Irish design scene, Watts argued that many of Ireland’s creatives make work informed by an innate understanding of circular principles, thanks to living on an island.
“Ireland is at a huge advantage with regard to circular design,” considered Watts. “Because we were such a small agricultural economy, most people have a living memory of what a circular economy was.”
“A lot of people came from a rural background and agricultural communities where it was not intensive agriculture, it was small farming. There was a real element of self-sufficiency in Ireland, maybe 50 years ago, and that’s why I think a lot of designers can understand circular design just as something that makes total sense,” he continued.
“It’s the way we were – it was make do and mend, you know, don’t throw that away because you’ll need it one day.”
Watts emphasised that Ireland’s history is deeply woven into its present-day design scene, displayed at an exhibition celebrating six decades of Kilkenny Design Workshops during Irish Design Week.
“Irish people are very open to new ideas”
Over 130 artefacts are on display in the stables at Butler Gallery near Kilkenny Castle, southeast Ireland, where the Design Workshops were founded in 1963 and where Design & Crafts Council Ireland is headquartered today.
The Design Workshops were founded after the Irish government commissioned the Scandinavian Report – an investigation that highlighted the gap between the country’s creative potential and its economic output.
“The report told us that we really had to get our act together,” reflected Watts. “Irish people are very open to new ideas and open to learning from other people.”
Watts noted that the Irish knack for craft is no clearer than in the work of one of Northern Ireland’s most famous creative exports – Jonathan Anderson, former Loewe creative director and current creative director of Dior.
While at Loewe, Anderson established the Loewe Craft Prize, created to revive and spotlight often-forgotten craft practices.
“He is a wonderful example of a storyteller,” said Watts, who also referenced fashion designers Róisín Pearce and Michael Stewart as exciting new names in the industry.
“When Jonathan went to Dior, he went deep into the archives to explore its history, and then took his own Irish cultural wellspring and laid that over the history.”
“A quote that I love from him is ‘decode to recode’.”
Watts also noted the work of emerging graphic designer Oscar Torrans, who created the visual identity for this year’s design week.
Torrans “takes huge inspiration from Irish mythology and history, but is also right at the forefront of what’s happening with contemporary design”, said Watts.
“It’s a kind of walking backwards into the future.”
“I think storytelling is something that is emerging as an art form,” considered Watts. “If there’s anyone who can do it, it’s the Irish. It’s just in our DNA.”
The images are courtesy of Irish Design Week.
Irish Design Week 2025 takes place from 17 to 21 November 2025 at various locations across Ireland. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
