Violins
HANDMADE & BESPOKE
Vegan
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The Vegan Violin
NATURAL, HANDMADE & BESPOKE
"Hello! Welcome to the world’s first 100% Vegan Violins - certified by the Vegan Society as free of animal products. These fine hand-crafted bespoke instruments are the culmination of 40-years’ experience in violin making, restoration and conservation and have been researched and developed amid rising concerns for our environment.
Made using traditional tools and methods, these vegan violins combine new techniques with the knowledge of some of the greatest makers in history such as Stradivari, Guarneri and Maggini. Great care has been taken to ensure the creation of a vegan-friendly instrument. Even the purfling decoration that defines the edges of the violin, is hand-made using natural dyes and collected spring water that rises from deep beneath the granite of the Malvern hills behind my workshop.
The focus for my instruments, is as always - you. In creating the sound and feel that you want in a violin, I’m also delighted to be able to do something for this glorious planet of ours, that allows ethical musicians to play the music they love."
Padraig ó Dubhlaoidh - Violin Maker
Vegan Violin
THE
DEVELOPED BY HIBERNIAN VIOLINS
Violins & Me...
MEET VIOLIN MAKER PADRAIG ó DUBHLAOIDH
Violin maker Padraig ó Dubhlaoidh (Pawrig O’Dooley) has been enchanted by the violin from childhood. Attending a folk music school in the centre of Dublin, Eire, he played in bands and sessions with the likes of Johnny Doherty and actor Brendan Gleeson.
Padraig developed his love of the instrument further under the guidance of fiddle legend Tommy Peoples before leaving Ireland to attend the Welsh College of Violin Making. On graduation he gained a position as violin maker at a leading Austrian conservatoire and worked in collaboration with the world-renowned authority on the violin, professor Eduard Melkus as well as the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Settling in the Malvern Hills, England, Padraig founded his workshop Hibernian Violins. He attended courses at Oxford University in bow-making and instrument conservation at the Victoria and Albert museum before being appointed as expert advisor to the British museum.
Padraig has been invited to examine and document instruments by Stradivari and has carried out restoration work on other historical instruments by makers such as Maggini, Guadagnini, Testore and Gagliano and has also restored instruments for Nigel Kennedy, Chris Leslie (Fairport Convention) and Peter Knight (Steeleye Span, Gigspanner). He has written articles for a number of publications including The Strad magazine and has also published undiscovered music that was written and sent to him by Irish folk violinist Tommy Potts.
His fine instruments continue to travel the world and have been featured at major venues, including Buckingham Palace, the White House, Carnegie Hall, Wiener Stadthalle and the Royal Albert Hall.
Testimonial
"I thoroughly recommend his expertise and skill." Chris Leslie. Fairport Convention.
Testimonial
"Padraig is so much more than a maker, repairer and restorer of stringed instruments. He is a man who understands the relationship that players have with their instrument". Peter Knight. (Steeleye Span, Gigspanner)
Testimonial
"Thoroughly reliable and always obliging." Hilary Elgar. violinist.
Testimonial
" I have no doubt at all, that Maggini himself would have been very proud of the instrument that you have created." Jeremy Tomlinson. Violinist.
A Passion for The Planet
SUPPORT FOR THE IPCI
Padraig’s research and knowledge has provided the greatest single independent contribution to the definitive reference work on violin conservation. Published by the IPCI (International Pernambuco Conservation Initiative), the book took over 10-years to research and was printed on hand-made paper by traditional methods using restored water-driven machinery in an ancient mill.
The IPCI has been instrumental in achieving a world-wide trade ban on Pernambuco wood which is used to make bows for stringed instruments. Industrialised harvesting has resulted in the near extinction of the species which can only be found in a small area on the South American coast. Padraig continues to campaign to preserve what little remains of the endangered Pernambuco forests and to plant new trees.
