Since I trained in 1981 I have never been stuck for work as a thatcher. Work, however, does not equal money! It is one of the vagaries of life that people who do the hardest physical work usually have to struggle for their money, whereas those who get others to do it for them often become wealthy.
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I got my start through a training course run by AnCo in 1981. Based around Ardara, County Donegal, we were shown the ropes by Jack Meaney, a traditional thatcher from County Cork. We worked on various net-thatched houses around the area, learning to thatch, harvest reeds, and split scollops.
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After we completed the course, another trainee Ciaran and I decided to team up. We rethatched a number of cottages, and then did our first new house down near Galway.
 
Then on to re-thatch Derrymore House, a National Trust property near Newry.
We encountered almost every feature on this roof : leaded valleys, hip ends, rising eaves, and a patterned straw turnover ridge. It gave us great experience, and certainly honed our thatching skills. We also learned about the "security situation" in Ulster, as we had digs in Dundalk and travelled down to Bessbrook every day in a Southern registered car.
"Step out of the car, and open your boot and bonnet!" was the often heard request from some military type, while he pointed a gun at you. We also discovered that the house used to belong to the erstwhile chancellor of ireland, which had caused a bomb to be planted which blew the end off it. In the long summer evenings one could hear the quaint sounds of some marksman practicing with an automatic weapon. Nice one.
Here is how we left the roof at completion. Thatched for the princely sum of £12,000, I soon discovered that the same amount was left in the budget to do some plastering and replace some windows!
Ah well, you live and learn.
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Ciaran and I went our separate ways after a few years. He is now a wine negotiant in France. I carried on under my own name. It doesn't seem so long ago, but when you look at the calender it is over 20 years. Time flies. Below are images of different jobs during that time:
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