Gobbins Crafts

Gobbins Crafts occupies a restored stone building on Gobbins Road in Islandmagee, originally a pig house dating from the early 1830s and converted into a jewellery studio with a log cabin extension added in 2018. Goldsmith Heather McFadden founded the business in 2016 after training in 3D design at Belfast College of Art, further study in Kilkenny and Copenhagen, and running her own goldsmithing business in Newtownards before teaching silversmithing at Belfast Metropolitan College. The studio runs jewellery-making classes covering silver ring and pendant work for beginners and more experienced students, and in 2021 it became the eleventh Northern Ireland business awarded Économusée status, a designation recognising working craft studios that are open to visitors. McFadden works and teaches from this single Islandmagee site, selling finished pieces alongside the workshop programme rather than operating any other branch.