Claidhbh Ó Gibne is an artist whose studio and home is located among the remnants of countless monuments in the Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Park. Influenced by the cultural and architectural elements of his surroundings, Claidhbh developed a deep curiosity for the mythology and natural world in which he grew up.

In 1983 he left for London after he had completed three years study as a chef in Galway College. In London he worked in various establishments while continuing to study art and photography in night classes over the next three years and eventually travelled to Canada to develop his passion for nature photography. In British Columbia he was first introduced to wood sculpting and was immediately intrigued by its beauty and its connection with the people’s heritage and ancestry. His interest grew during time he spent in New Zealand and across Asia, as he became increasingly aware of the common themes expressed by sea cultures with their spiralling designs and circles.

After returning home to Ireland in 1991, he began a new career that set him out on his own personal journey, that as an artist. He opened his studio/ home to the public and spent many years perfecting his skills of carving and drawing on the repetitive production of Celtic or early Christian art, all the time being challenged to create new designs for the public, as well as private commissions.

Living on the banks of the Boyne, Claidhbh has become increasingly intrigued with the river's distinctive traditional currach, because of its simplicity of form, and through its raw materials, its direct connection with the earliest journeys undertaken by the people of the Europe who arrived to our shores. And although this small wicker craft became synonymous with the River Boyne, as it was an ideal vessel for trapping salmon, it also holds the thumbprint for reproducing the greater ocean-going crafts of which there are many recorded accounts throughout our history. The currachs that Claidhbh builds are from organic materials, widely used over 1000s of years in Ireland, giving him, as an artist the opportunity to work with techniques all but lost to us in the 21st century;  to mould and shape raw hide , sinew, leather, hazel, feather and bone.

Claidhbh has produced different proto types of sea currachs made from tanned cowhides and hazel baskets. He is presently working on a 34 foot craft of a style and sturdiness that could have both brought some of the earliest settlers to Ireland and transported the giant stones to build the great passage tomb at Newgrange which overlooks Claidbh's home and workshop at Donore, Co Meath.