As Christmas draws near, the traditional end of year exhibitions, fairs and markets bring any number of opportunities to invest in Irish arts and crafts. Most outlets offer a range of affordable items, such as cards, household goods and jewellery, as well as more expensive heirloom pieces, such as paintings, prints and sculptures.
Lavit Gallery
Wandesford Quay, Clarke’s Bridge, Cork T12 E26D
Victor Richardson, The Old Pumphouse, The Lee Fields
A seasonal showcase of Irish art, craft and design, including paintings, prints, sculpture, ceramics, textiles and so much more. More than fifty artists are featured, including Ita Freeney, Mags Geaney, Roseanne Lynch, Jim Turner and Grainne Watts.
Prices for original artworks from €700 for Ciara Gormley’s oil on canvas Autumn Meadow 1 to €1,920 for Michael Quane graphite pencil and gold leaf drawing Tuber to €9,000 for Victor Richardson’s oil painting The Old Pumphouse, The Lee Fields.
Gifts from €35 for Siobhain Steele’s ceramic robins to €75 for Deirdre McKenna’s Old Head of Kinsale etching to €100 for Carmel Creaner’s set of six napkins.
Backwater Artists
Wandesford Quay, Cork T12 E26D
Backwater Artists has a membership of more than 110, to whom it provides studio spaces, mentorship and exhibition opportunities throughout the year. This year’s Christmas showcase features paintings, digital prints, works in collage and sculpture by 25 artists, including Amna Walayat, Éilis Ní Fhaoláín, Stephen Doyle and Joseph Heffernan.
Prices start at €110, most works are in the €300-500 range, with larger pieces on offer from €1,000-€3,000.
Cork Printmakers
Wandesford Quay, Cork
The Printmakers gallery and online store features work in intaglio, screen-printing, lithography, letterpress, relief and digital printing by scores of local printmakers, from Aoife Barrett and Ben Reilly to Noelle Nooan and Wendy Dison, Prices from €40 for the Project Twins’ risographs and €130 for Bríd Moynahan’s etchings to €600 for Paul La Rocque’s screen-prints and €1,250 for Emma O’Hara’s monotypes.
Letterpress cards €4, tote bags €15.
Crawford Supported Studios
MTU Gallery at 46 Grand Parade, Cork T12 VN56
Pop-up Exhibition Crawford Supported Studios supports artists from Glasheen Art Studio Programme and Mayfield Arts Centre’s Cúig Programme, including Ailbhe Barrett, Íde Ní Shúilleabháin, John Keating and Stephen Murray.
Original artwork, prints and paintings from €10 – €300.
Charlie Mahon
Ceramics Pottery, Unit 43, English Market, Cork T12 WER8
Charlie Mahon is a graduate of the Crawford College of Art & Design and the University of Mississippi, USA. He uses traditional Irish techniques and white earthenware clay, glazes and oxides – along with the odd piece of gold – to create hand-thrown, hand-painted pieces with a playful contemporary twist.
Prices from €20 for dipping bowls and €35 for coffee mugs to €120 for framed ceramic pieces and €900 for unique ceramic sculptures.
Cork Textile Network
Cork School of Music, Union Quay, Cork T12 E9HY
Face the Music Christmas Exhibition Cork Textile Network provides a range of supports for textile artists, including masterclasses, Zoom talks and skills exchange workshops. The Network’s Christmas exhibition, Face the Music, features artists such as Anne Kiely, Carmel Creaner, Julia Zagar and Lesley Stothers, working in techniques that range from print, stitch and machine embroidery to tapestry weaving.
Prices from €40 to €950.
8am – 10pm Monday to Friday, 8.30am – 5.30pm Saturday
9.30am – 5.30pm Sunday, until January 5, 2026
Cora Murphy
This is the Place, 42 Douglas Street, Cork T12 EC5K
Cora Murphy – Speir Rua, This is the Place, 42 Douglas Street, Cork T12 EC5K
Cora Murphy creates abstract paintings based on the Irish landscape and the natural world. She works in oils, using up to 50 layers to complete a painting. Murphy has worked outdoors on residencies in Cill Rialag in Co Kerry, in Co Mayo and in Mexico. Her conversion of a former shop on Douglas St into her new home and studio featured in Great House Revival on RTÉ in March this year.
Art card gift sets from €25, limited edition prints from €275 and original paintings from €925.
Showroom open weekends. 10am – 4pm, November 29 – 30 December 6 – 7, 13 – 14, 20 – 21
Nano Nagle Place
Douglas Street, Cork T12 X70A
The Christmas markets feature beautiful ceramics, vibrant jewellery, original pastel artworks, olive-wood pieces, sustainable Irish-language apparel, ginger-inspired treats and beautifully restored toys – gifts with meaning, story and soul.
The featured makers include Church House Pottery, Jayney Mac, Jeneric Crafts, Blasta Delights and Toys Arís.
Prices range from €30 for Teanga Grá’s Tiocfaidh ár Grá (Our Love Will Come) t-shirts to €113 for morning coffee sets by Doolin Clay Pottery, hand-thrown from glacial clay dug 120ft within the caverns of Doolin Cave in the Burren, Co Clare.
Outlaw Studios
Unit R2, Marina Commercial Park, Cork T12 R3HX
The Christmas Show features an eclectic mix of work by the 13 artists based in Cork’s longest running studio, including figurative and abstract sculpture, painting and drawing.
Prices range from €160 for Tom Campbell’s Car Dog painting to €470 for Rosie O’Regan’s collage Scattered Sky, €480 for Alison O’Shea’s painter Beholder and €750 for John Corkery’s oil on canvas St Finbarr’s.
All the artists are donating a percentage of their sales to Nasc Gaza, a small women-led aid initiative, operating between Gaza and Ireland.
Benchspace
Units O15 and B1b, Marina Commercial Park, Centre Park Road, Cork T12 YAE4 and T12 KRH7
Benchspace is a not-for-profit creative enterprise hub for makers in woodwork, metalwork and digital fabrication.
The Christmas market features jewellery by Alex Thiel, Róisin McCabe, and Fabio Oliveira of Mo Ghrian; photographs by Karen Lunnon; and furniture by Christopher Tuohy and Fergal O’Leary of Horizon.
Prices from €50 for jewellery to €1,500 for bespoke furniture pieces.
Cork Craft & Design, Douglas Court Shopping Centre
T12 HK5D and St Patrick’s Woollen Mills, 27A, Cork T12 H932
Corkidoodle do Frame, €85, Cork Craft & Design, Douglas Court Shopping Centre
Established in 2005, Cork Craft & Design promotes the work of 110 professional and semi-professional craft and design makers in Cork city and county. From hand-thrown ceramics and illustrated prints, to sustainable wooden toys, textiles, jewellery, and furniture, there are more than 4,000 handcrafted gifts on offer this year, online and at the organisation’s two outlets in Cork.
Prices from €10 for Barbara Hubert Cork Notebook to €350 for Julian Smith’s raku Torso and €450 for Emily Thompson’s painting Highland Cow.
Douglas Court Shopping Centre 10am – 6pm, Monday to Saturday
St Patrick’s Woollen Mills, 27A 10am – 5pm, Monday to Saturday
LHQ Gallery
County Library Building, Carrigrohane Road, Cork T12 K335
Winter Exhibition The LHQ Open Call Winter Exhibition features 74 works by 68 Cork-based artists. The showcase is titled ‘Oh, the thinks you can think’, after the 1975 Dr Seuss book of the same name, and refers to the endless possibilities and dreams the imagination can create.
Prices range from €135 for Abbie Foley’s earthenware Building Blocks and €300 for Silvio Severino’s analogue collage, Prosopagnosia 1, to €1,600 for Debbie Dawson’s oil on board, Coolgreen, 1970.
Giles Norman
45 Main Street, Kinsale P17 K651
Giles Norman, 45 Main Street, Kinsale P17 K651
Giles Norman is a self-taught photographer, inspired by Brassai and Henri Cartier-Bresson, whose subjects include the coastline and landscapes of Ireland and city scenes in London, Paris, Rome, New York and Bangkok.
Prices from €140 for 12” x 16”, €360 for 24” x 30” and €650 for 36” x 48” prints. Signed coffee table books on the Wild Atlantic Way and 2026 calendars, both €38. Shipping available worldwide.
10am – 5pm Tuesday to Saturday. Sunday and Monday by appointment only.
West Cork Collective
Main Street, Ballinspittle, Co Cork P17 FF62
The West Cork Collective has more than 30 members from Ballincollig to Bantry, including Bee Kind Candles, Loch Mór Pottery and textile artist Rebecca Powell. The Collective has a permanent base in the village of Ballinspittle, running arts and crafts classes and workshops, as well as serving as an outlet for its members’ products.
Prices from €5 for cards and €10 for jewellery and candles to €1,500 for unique paintings and sculptures.
Blue House Gallery
Main Street, Schull, Co Cork P81 VY38
Christmas Exhibition Founded in 2013, the Blue House Gallery shows painting, sculpture, prints and ceramics by West Cork artists in a series of solo, group and themed exhibitions from Easter to the end of September each year.
The Christmas Exhibition features work by gallery artists such as Claire Lambert, Catherine Weld, Angela Fewer and Geoff Greenham.
Prices range from €105 for Dick Richards’ mixed media Blue Door Reverie and €185 for Etain Hickey’s ceramic Hare With Butterfly to €10,000 for Ian Humphreys’ oil on canvas, Elegy.
Uillinn
West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen, Co Cork P81 VW98
Claire Lambert, West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen, Co Cork P81 VW98
Fragments of Silence, Cork City and County Artists’ Winter Showcase Uillinn’s Christmas Showcase features work by Tom Climent, Mags Geaney, Kiroko Hashimoto and many others from around the county. The artists were invited to meditate on silence, and produce new pieces that explore ideas of stillness.
Prices from €250 for Claire Lambert’s oil on board, Sea Gaze, to €800 Paul la Rocque’s screenprint, Quebec.
Uillinn also has a small exhibition of archival prints for sale, including Tess Leak’s Day 78: Listening to the Trees for €20 (unframed) and Diana Copperwhite’s Remote Time Lapse for €90 (unframed).
Cormac Boydell
Coomeen, Allihies, Beara P75 E065
Cormac Boydell – Coomeen, Allihies, Beara P75 E065
Pre-Christmas Studio Exhibition Cormac Boydell is one of Ireland’s foremost ceramic artists. A former geologist, he has been based in Allihies since 1972, producing handmade pieces that take inspiration from the landscape of Beara. His work is in the collections of the Ulster Museum, the Crawford Art Gallery in cork and the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dublin.
His Pre-Christmas Studio Exhibition will feature 30 unique new pieces, including terracotta plates with studio-made glazes, edged in gold metal, €240 each.