One Hundred Makers, One Guesthouse: The Craft Economy Model Taking Shape in Rural Ireland

The bedside glasses were hand-blown by the chef's mother. The oak dining tables came from trees on the estate. The acoustic panels lining the ceiling gaps are made from eelgrass harvested in Denmark. And the 2,000 books scattered through the property were each recommended by a staff member.

This is not a design hotel assembled from a catalogue. This is Ómós, a 16-bedroom guesthouse and 40-cover restaurant that opened in July 2026 in Abbeyleix, County Laois, about an hour and a half southwest of Dublin. Its chef and co-owner, 34-year-old Cúán Greene, spent more than three years renovating a derelict Victorian house and building a new restaurant structure. Along the way, he and his design team visited artisans across Ireland, eventually commissioning work from over 100 makers.

I have always liked throwing myself in at the deep end, and here I am very much at the deep end.

Cúán Greene

A Model, Not Just Inspiration

For anyone watching Sofia's own craft scene take shape, Ómós offers something concrete. The question facing artisan communities everywhere is the same: how do small-scale makers survive when mass production is cheaper and faster? One answer is to find anchor clients, hospitality venues that commit to sourcing locally across every discipline, not just food.

The plates are hand-thrown by Fermoyle Pottery in County Kerry. The textiles are Irish. The furniture was made by named craftspeople, not anonymous suppliers. In Sofia, specialty coffee roastery Blue Bag operates on a similar principle, partnering with verified farms and crediting individual producers. The scale is different, but the logic is the same: transparency and craft as the business model, not the marketing layer.

Three Architects, One Vision

Greene's background includes time at Noma in Copenhagen, and the Scandinavian influence shows. The architectural team was a three-way collaboration: Ryan W Kennihan Architects from Dublin, and Copenhagen-based Asca Studio and Relief Gallery.

The ambition from my perspective was to work with what we found on site, aligning with Cúán's vision, not chasing trends. We wanted to create a timeless building that would be just as beautiful in 200 years.

Ryan Kennihan

The building itself is Millbrook House, a heritage-listed Victorian residence that once belonged to the land agent of the Abbeyleix Estate. It sat derelict until John Collison, co-founder of Irish fintech firm Stripe, acquired the estate and suggested Greene take over the property. The original plan had been a restaurant in Dublin. The pivot to rural Ireland changed everything.

Glassblowing, Pottery, Eelgrass

What makes Ómós unusual is not that it hired one artisan. It is that it built an entire ecosystem. The disciplines represented include glassblowing (Róisín de Buitléar, Greene's mother), pottery (Fermoyle Pottery), furniture-making (oak from the estate), textile design, and acoustic engineering (Søuld, a Danish firm working with eelgrass).

The restaurant looks out on a market garden on one side and a mill pond on the other. The menu draws on Irish and international techniques, with ingredients produced on site or nearby. Dessert includes a riff on Viennetta, the retro ice-cream treat, made with fig leaf, meadowsweet, and blueberries.

The Town That Gains

Ómós is already drawing visitors to a town that was not previously a food destination. Guests can walk into Abbeyleix along a trail through the estate forest or be ferried to Morrissey's, an archetypal Irish pub-cum-grocery shop, for a pint of Guinness. Greene has mentioned plans for a deli or wine bar in the future.

The investors include Collison and Sam Dennigan, founder of food brand Strong Roots. Dennigan, who serves as chair, was clear about the commercial intent:

A lot of the time, these places can be follies for investors but I was conscious that Ómós wasn't going to go that way.

Sam Dennigan

This is not charity. It is a venture-backed hospitality business structured in a way that benefits local makers. Craft economies do not survive on goodwill alone. They survive when someone builds a business model that makes sourcing locally the rational choice.

Strictly speaking, Abbeyleix is a town, but, as they say, it takes a village.

Cúán Greene

For Sofia's own artisan communities, the question is not whether such a model could work here. It is who will build it.