“I’ve a little piece written in the window ‘Ireland’s smallest Sam Maguire,’ which I’ve no doubt it is,” says Annette Lappin.
The fine jeweller is talking about a very unusual piece she has on display in the window of her shop in Monaghan. It’s a little silver box with an orange and white enamelled lid. On top of this sits a tiny replica of the iconic All-Ireland winners’ trophy, the Sam Maguire, which she tells me is “not even an inch high”.
Always an artistic child and teen, she says that when she went to the National College of Art and Design in Dublin she knew that jewellery was her passion.
Close up of Annette’s mini Sam Maguire
“I first saw they had a metalwork department and it intrigued me, the whole layout and the ambience of it. I got a really good feeling and I thought this is what I wanted to do, craft metal jewellery.”
Annette has been based at her shop in Monaghan since 2005 and while she does sell pieces, she says, “I would say 80-85% of my business is commission work.”
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Working with all kinds of fine metals is her passion and while inspired by jewellery of the past, in particular that of the Art Nouveau period, creating the unique is something she says she’s always striving for, saying: “There’s a lot of sentiment in what we do.”
It makes sense then that when it came to a project she was assigned as a student, she decided to make something a little different. An Armagh woman, Annette decided to make the miniature Sam Maguire 22 years ago in 2002, the year of Armagh’s last All-Ireland triumph prior to this year’s success.
Annette Lappin
“I made it as a student in Kilkenny Craft Council of Ireland in the Crescent Workshops. That was a brief set to all the students, we’d to make a cylindrical silver box and the lid could be anything you wanted it to be.”
Annette decided, in homage to her county’s success that she’d attempt to duplicate the trophy in miniature. Because the trophy is probably the best-known one on the island Annette says, “it’s hard to replicate it [but] I’d a lot of fun doing it.”
The original cup, which is in the GAA Museum in Dublin, was made in 1928 and its design was based off the Ardagh Chalice. This cup was retired in 1987 and since then a replica has been presented to teams.
Silversmith Desmond Byrne, who made the replica Sam Maguire and was also working in Kilkenny at the time, and Annette went to visit him when she embarked on the project.
“I went over to him and said I’m going to make a miniature Sam Maguire, is that alright?”
He gave his blessing and Annette brought him the finished article when she’d completed it.
“I went over to show him and he just laughed. There’s no comparison in the work and it was a wee bit of craic at the time.”
She says: “There’s so much detail in the real Sam Maguire, you’re never going to get that detail. You give a little nod to some of the elements that are in the main trophy.”
Annette says that being a jeweller working at such a small scale wasn’t as tricky as you might imagine: “We work on a small scale all the time, we’re under microscopes working.”
Because of the recent win, Annette says, “Being an Armagh woman in Monaghan, I thought I’ll take out the Sam Maguire for a bit of fun and a bit of interest.” She has it displayed with some mini bunting.
“People are stopping and having a wee look and you can hear the noise outside the shop at times. It’s causing a little bit of interest,” she says. Unlike the original trophy she says, “there’s only one of these,” and because of the sentimental value of her creation she wouldn’t be tempted to sell it, even though “people have asked”.
However, in happy news for any Armagh fans, or indeed this year’s players, “I would work on a commission, if asked.”
To find out more about Annette’s work you can find her on social media. Her shop is located at 21 Glaslough Street, Monaghan and she is available by phone at (00353) 47 380 88.