In the mid‑20th century, when many agricultural practices and crafts were vanishing, a quiet craftsman in Kitchenstown, Naul, County Dublin, kept alive a rural tradition that had been long left behind.


His name was John Hamilton, and he was one of, if not the last skilled maker of wooden sieves.

Figure 1: John Hamilton holding a wooden sieve © National Museum of Ireland

John Hamilton grew up on the family farm in Naul, where he learned the skill of sieve-making from an Irish Traveller known as “The Twigger”, who regularly visited the area.

Hamilton said that he began with weaving and shaping the wood when he had time. In the summer of 1948, National Museum of Ireland director A.T. Lucas and Kevin Danaher of the Irish Folklore Commission visited Hamilton at his home and filmed the entire process from start to finish.

An eleven minute film and a step by step process can be seen on the National Museum’s website Making a Wooden Sieve - John Hamilton | National Museum of Ireland.

Hamilton never made sieves as a full-time trade. Farming was his priority and in his spare hours, he made the sieves, then carried them to sell in the nearby town of Balbriggan.

In poorer rural homes of the 18th and 19th centuries, barns and outhouses were rare. Grain was threshed out in the open on windy days. Sieves served two roles: coarse ones to separate chaff, small stones, and weed seeds, and finer ones to winnow the cleanest grain into sacks. Not only were these essential for food processing but they were everyday carriers and “The ancestors of the plastic bucket and basin”[1].


By the mid-20th century, home threshing with the flail had almost vanished. Commercial mills and modern grain cleaning tools replaced the handmade sieves.

Although not on permanent exhibition, Hamilton’s collection of sieves and tools that were acquired by the museum have been brought out on public display several times over the last seventy years. In March 2024, they were brought back to the community in which they were made for a pop-up exhibition in the Seamus Ennis Arts Centre. Hundreds of visitors came throughout the day to watch the 1948 film and see the artefacts in person but what was even more special is that this became somewhat of a family reunion for the Hamilton family when over twenty of John Hamilton’s descendants spend several hours at the centre catching up and sharing stories that were passed down about the talented craftsman.

Figure 2 Advertisement for pop up exhibition at SEAC

One grandchild shared that Hamilton didn’t just make sieves but could put his hand to anything and fixed and mended all sorts of wooden furniture or implements for families and neighbours. John Hamilton’s grandson of the same name shared that with the £5 he was paid for the sieves and tools he was able to put a new roof on his house and a purchase a new bike.


Figure 3: John Hamilton using a ladder and drawknife to shape the ash © National Museum of Ireland
 
One of Hamilton’s most important tools that can be seen in the film was his drawknife which he used to shape the rim of the sieve. After almost eighty years since the sieves and tools were acquired by the museum, John Hamilton’s grandson kindly donated this drawknife helping to complete the wooden sieve making collection. 
 

Figure 4: F:2024.1 drawknife after conservation © National Museum of Ireland

Figure 5: F:2024.1 drawknife after conservation © National Museum of Ireland
 

After spending some time out of use, the handles were damaged with woodworm and the blade rusted but the National Museum’s wood conservator Patrick Boyle was able to revive the drawknife to a stable condition. The drawknife along with the other objects are not currently on public display but still hold a prominent space in the Irish Folklife Collection of a craft long forgotten by culture but preserved by John Hamilton’s skill and appreciation for a traditional way of life.

Published: 18 December 2025

[1] Vallely F. Beating Time “The Story of the Irish Bodhrán” (2025), Cork University Press