About Us

We have been teaching pottery in Galway for over 40 years.

Galway Pottery Classes has been teaching pottery from 3 Lower Merchants Road for over 40 years. Laurence O’Kelly studied sculpture at Belfast College of Art, and then went on to set up the pottery workshop in Galway city centre. He has taught students of all ages over the last 40 years. Some students have attended classes as children and then enrolled again as adults.

Meet the tutors:

Kevin grew up attending pottery classes with his father. From a young age, he helped in his father’s classes before going on to teach and run his own. He completed a two-year intensive Pottery Skills and Design course in Thomastown, County Kilkenny where he received a distinction. He was also shortlisted for a Future Makers Award during his time there.

Alena is a French-Russian pottery producer and teacher. After studying Illustration in Paris, she then travelled the world before calling Ireland her home. She now lives in Galway and makes pots, as well as passing on her pottery skills to others. In Alena’s own work, she draws inspiration from landscapes, natural elements, and is strongly influenced by Scandinavian and Japanese aesthetics. She likes to make functional pottery with simple, elegant designs and a handmade feel, and strongly believes that life is always better with a favourite cup in hand!

Student Focussed

Galway Pottery Classes are now fully focused on teaching students the skills needed to learn the potter’s wheel. The wheel is quite a difficult skill to master but we have a unique teaching method that produces great results. This involves breaking the techniques that are needed down into manageable steps and stages.

This is one of only a very few ceramic courses in Ireland which is solely focused on teaching students how to use the potter’s wheel. There is a maximum of 5 students per course and each student has a top-quality wheel to use for the duration of the course.