Rethatching Tuam's Thatch

TUAM’S only remaining thatched bar, The Thatch at Foster Place, is currently getting a new golden coat on its roof.
The thatcher is South-Galway based but Dutch-born Marika Leen. As she steps like a ballerina along the ridge of the two storey of the building, which is hundreds of years old, carrying bulky bundles of reeds she is sure footed with a head for heights.
“The logistics of getting the stuff up to the roof can be a bit daunting as it will take a total of between 1,2000 and 1,300 bundles to thatch The Thatch,” says Marika. Last year she thatched the ancestral home of the Lynch family at Bodane Mills near Tuam and following a feature on her in The Tuam Herald at that time she has got some other thatching jobs in North Galway.