Charles Shackleton was born and grew up in a beautiful Georgian home near Dublin, Ireland. His mother was the daughter of a general in the British Army and direct descendent of David Ricardo, the famous economist of mid-18th century. Charles’ father was a businessman, flour miller and well known for his incredible passion and skill as a gardener (his garden is still open to the public). His father’s family was one of the first Quaker families to settle Ireland in the early 1700’s, opening the well-known school in Ballitore and founding the family flour milling business. He was also related to the famous Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton.

At the age of 19, under pressure from the system and background from which he had come, Charles felt a need to find a vocation, but he wanted to do something that would also satisfy his physical and spiritual needs. He decided that he wanted to pursue a childhood passion of creating things with his hands. He spent hour upon hour of his childhood making things, mostly out of wood, in an old workshop in the gardens behind his parent’s house. It was during these long hours of being left to his own devices in the workshop and also in the woods and gardens around his family home that he went to “a place” where he found enlightenment, freedom, healing, happiness, timelessness, imagination, inspiration, fulfillment and peace.

What exactly it is that leads one into this world I do not know. It is something to do with the act of creating. Using hand tools to create many shapes, sticking these shapes together to create new shapes and bringing it all together creating something that goes far beyond the sum of all those parts.

Charles decided that not only would he like to spend his life continuing to go to this place, but he wanted to help lead others to that place. It seemed such a simple educational idea: Creating useful and beautiful things out of the trees in the surrounding woods and going to places in your mind that the modern travel agency (or career counselor) did not appear to offer. Perhaps the pieces created could evoke some hint of the private world that the craftsperson had traveled to has he or she made each piece.

Twenty years later, Charles has created the company of his dreams. Judging by its success, those dreams are the dreams of many others.