While international talent is very welcome, it’s important that the standard of the artists is high,” says Paddy O’Donohoe, the organiser of Dublin Tattoo Conference. “We have people from Singapore, Germany, France, everywhere, They have to send a portfolio first and get vetted that way.

“I do all body modifications, everything but tattooing,” he adds. ‘Piercing, branding, scarring, cutting, reshaping, implants – all the good stuff! I love how far you can push the body. I do suspensions and hanging people. People do it just to see if they can.”
There are no suspensions at the convention, but, says O’Donohoe – who runs Body Shock Piercing Studio, in Dublin’s Temple Bar – there’s a reason for that.
“You’re not allowed to hang people in public,” he laughs. “They’ve banned public hangings in Ireland. I don’t do anything too dangerous, although chances are you may disagree. One thing I’ve done is pull a car up and down a laneway with hooks attached to my back. But that’s just for shits and giggles. It’s fun. Although your idea of shits and giggles may be different.”
Indeed! O’Donohoe has been interested in tattooing as an art form from a young age.
“I got my first tattoo when I was 16. A friend of mine came home with this stupid thing on his chest. I started slagging him and he said, ‘Well you go do it!’ So I said, ‘No problem’. I went out and got one and that was it. I was interested for a long time though. Before that I always bought tattoo magazines and hung around with artists.
“I’ve being getting them for over 15 years. At this stage it’s all one tattoo!” he jokes. “There are only a few gaps left.”

Kitten
TATTOO ENTHUSIAST:
Some people collect pictures – I collect art on my skin. Getting a tattoo on a bone can be painful, especially the spine, but a good tattooist won’t really hurt you; a bad tattooist will – they’re called scratchers.

Attila Bona
TATTOO ARTIST
Wildcat Ink, Dublin and Meath:
I’m originally from Hungary. I’ve been a tattoo artist for 12 years now. I’ll do whatever a client asks, but my personal style is realist and I like dark imagery. Nobody can teach you style, because it is personal and it says something about the artist.
Karen Cheetah
Tattoo artist:
I studied art and then did a tattoo apprenticeship. My mother thought I was going to be a curator! I admire Japanese art and I like feminine, delicate tattoos. I think when male tattoo artists do flowers they can’t help but make them masculine. I believe it is important to research and study the culture behind different types of art before doing a design based on it. I won’t do political or racist tattoos – there’s no need for that!

Garry
TATTOO ENTHUSIAST:
The whole tattoo took 15 sittings, every fortnight for 30 weeks. I met a couple of people who had tattoos done by Pert at Ink Castle in Belfast, so I went and saw him. When he did my arms I saw how good he was and I’d always wanted to get my back done. He did my back tattoo just out of his head, no stencils – it’s a one-off.

William
TATTOO ENTHUSIAST:
I started off with one tattoo and it just progressed to a whole body suit. Once you get one, you want more. My favourite bit is over my ribs because they were the hardest to get done. The whole tattoo took six years. I went once a week for six years! Now that I’m covered I kind of miss it.

Maria
TATTOO ENTHUSIAST:
I started when I was 15 and I’ve probably been getting them for about the last five years. Dre [from Addinktion] did this tattoo, which is based on the Mexican Day Of The Dead. I just love that style.

Dre:
TATTOO ARTIST
with Addinktion, Belfast:
I’m originally from Colombia. I had an infatuation with tattoos since I was no age. In my country back in the ‘80s, tattoos were very frowned upon and seen as only for jailbirds and sailors. A cousin of my mom had a pick and poke tattoo and I thought it was the greatest shit – it was the only tattoo I’d ever seen! I wanted one but my mother said, ‘No way!’ At the time, since I couldn’t get one, I started doing them. Anyone can learn the mechanics of doing tattoos, but that’s all you’ll be, a mechanic. Nobody can teach you to be creative – that comes from inside.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TATTOOING

The art of tattooing goes back centuries - and is more popular than ever in modern Ireland.

First a history lesson: you may not know it but tattooing has been with us for at least 5,000 years. The earliest recorded tattoo was found in 1991 when scientists uncovered the frozen remains of a Copper Age man they named Ötzi. Ötzi’s back, knees, ankles and feet were marked with simple tattoos, made by rubbing charcoal into lines cut into the skin.

Since they have been with humanity so long, tattoos have a rich cultural history. Tattooing has been practised across the world – the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Vikings, Japanese, Persians and the Celts all used tattoos. The Celtic designs popular today are not necessarily historically inaccurate: spirals, knotwork and mazes were used in Celtic tattoos. However, if you really wanted to recreate tradition, you’d have to forgo ink and use woad, which stains the body blue.
Tattoos have long been popular with warriors. When Romans centurions fighting our British neighbours noticed that their opponents had tattoos, they followed suit. In the 11th and 12th centuries Christian Crusaders tattooed a Jerusalem cross on their bodies so that they would be given a Christian burial if they died in battle.
Tattooing fell out of fashion in Europe after the Crusades, but during the 18th century it returned when sailors visited the islands of the Pacific. The word “tattoo” comes from the Tahitian tatau, which means to mark the body. The word entered the English language in the late 18th century after Captain James Cook landed in Tahiti in 1796. Tattooing was important in Polynesian culture, where it was used to mark important life stages.
With seafaring such an important activity at the time, tattooing became popular among sailors. Over the next 100 years, body art crossed over into high society. In a nod to the Crusaders, in 1862, the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, had a Jerusalem cross tattooed on his arm and started a fashion for tattoos amongst the British aristocracy.
Samuel O’Reilly patented the first electric tattoo machine in New York in 1891. In the USA, tattooing became synonymous with fringe cultures through the 19th century, including circus folk, sailors and criminals, ensuring that tattoos wremained on the wrong side of respectable.
Less than 100 years after O’Reilly’s invention, New York City outlawed tattoos in 1961 believing the practise would cause a Hepatitis C outbreak. Plenty of tattooing still went on, but it went underground. The supposed health scare never materialised despite the fact that most tattooists were working in the less than sterile confines of their apartments. It took 36 years for what was by any stretch of the imagination a crazy law to be overturned.
Activists working to change the law were in part helped by MTV. The prevalence of famous rock stars sporting tattoos, with no adverse affects, helped changed perceptions. During the last decades of the 20th century, any stigma that might have been associated with tattoos faded, and these days they are extremely popular. Again, celebs have had a hand in this. Tattoos can be found on everyone from the hardest rocker to Oscar-winning actresses.

Famous Folk With Tattoos

Josh Homme of QOTSA sports a number of tattoos. These include the nicknames of his grandparents on his knuckles and his daughter’s name over his heart. Homme appears to be fond of hearts – he has a design of five of them on his left arm and a string of six hearts on his right forearm.

Dave Grohl has three tattoos based on Led Zeppelin’s three-circle logo from Led Zeppelin IV. The first he did himself at the tender age of 16; the second was done at an illegal squat in Amsterdam; and the third was paid for with his first earnings from Nirvana. Grohl’s first effort is a cautionary tale about tattooing yourself. “It looks like someone put a cigarette out on my fucking arm,” he’s said.

Sinéad O’Connor has several tattoos, including a Celtic cross on her shoulder and a large image of Jesus on her breastbone. This is not the easiest part of the body to tattoo since there is very little flesh here. Sinéad has written that getting the Jesus tattoo was “three hours of unremitting agony” but that a kind stranger held her hand during the experience.

Tattooing the name of a partner is a risky business. Johnny Depp famously deleted part of his ‘Winona Forever’ tattoo so that it now reads ‘Wino Forever’. Angelina Jolie used to sport a tribute to former husband Billy Bob Thorton on her upper arm but this has been lasered off and replaced with the co-ordinates of where her brood of children were born. Angelina is seriously fond of ink and has several other tattoos, including a Buddhist incantation on her shoulder and a Bengal tiger on her lower back.

Choosing a Tattoo Artist

There are a number of factors involved when choosing your tattoo artist. First off you should consider their previous body of work and find a tattooist whose style matches what you want.
Secondly, the tattoo artist should be someone you like. He or she doesn’t have to be your new best friend, but if you are getting a design that takes a number of sittings, you’ll appreciate someone with whom you have a degree of empathy.
Lastly, but certainly not least, you need to consider hygiene. Never use a tattoo parlour that looks dirty because you risk infection. However, the most dangerous “dirt” is not anything you can see.
Of particular concern are amateur tattooists who re-use needles. A number of diseases can be spread by sharing needles, including Hepatitis C and HIV so this is not a trivial matter. Lucikly, the Association of Body Modification Artists in Ireland (ABMAI) has guidelines to help you chose wisely.

Irish Tattoo Studios

Urban Gorilla
1 Water Lane, Sligo, County Sligo
Tel: 071 9146694
www.urbangorilla.ie
Graham “Wally” Wallace of Urban Gorilla has been tattooing for 13 years and learnt his craft in Sydney, Australia. Wally does all styles of tattooing but specialises in Polynesian, tribal and blackwork designs, inspired by his extensive travels in the East. “I got my first tattoo in London at age 17, a grim reaper on my arm,” Wally says. But, he informs HP, this youthful choice has been covered up a long time ago. Urban Gorilla promises its customers “sound choons, eclectic art and a relaxed crew”, helmed by head tattooist Wally.

Spilled Ink Tattoo
18 Great Denmark St., D1
Tel: 018741111
www.facebook.com/Spilled.Ink.Tattoo.Studio
Mario Coppola of Dublin’s Spilled Ink got his first tattoo at eighteen, a star in the Inter Milan colours, in the hopes that his father, a lifelong fan of the team, wouldn’t freak out. Luckily for Mario this plan worked. “From that point on, I knew I wanted to keep getting tattooed,” he says, “so I did.” Fast forward a couple of years and Coppola’s Dad was even contributing to his body art himself! “A good friend of mine who taught me a lot about the tattoo industry used to get all his friends to tattoo their names on his leg,” he explains. “He would set up a machine and talk them through the process while permanently signing their name. I loved his idea so much I started to do the same thing with my friends and family! I’ve gotten most of my friends to tattoo their names on me now, including my parents and sister!”
At Spilled Ink, Mario enjoys doing custom designs. “Ninety percent of the work done in Spilled Ink is custom designed, which always works out well for the customer because a lot of people like the idea of having something no one else has,” he says. “I’ve always loved the buzz of getting to know the customer and giving the best advice I can give – so ultimately their tattoo turns out as great as they hoped. It really makes what you’re doing worth it when you see a customer leave the shop with a smile on their face!”

Wildcat Ink
St. Stephen’s Green, D2 and Jervis St.
Tel: 014784273/018780551
www.wildcat.ie
Operating out of two city centre studios, Wildcat Ink is Ireland’s biggest tattoo and piercing establishment, boasting some award-winning tattoo artists in their stable. Coming from Brazil, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and naturally enough, Dublin. Wildcat Ink’s artists have put their pens to work on a whole host of stars including tattooed lady of the moment, Sinéad O’Connor.
The great benefit of a large studio is the number of different styles on offer. Wildcat tattooists’ specialities range from photo-realistic portraits, to colourful religious work, cartoon/sci-fi and comic book inspired work as well as Old School, Japanese, Maori, Polynesian, mehndi and dotwork styles of tattooing.

Colour Works Tattoo
4 Upper Fownes St., Temple Bar, D2
Tel: 01 677 9555
www.colourworks.ie
Now a decade in business, Colour Works Tattoo in Dublin’s Temple Bar specialises in custom and hand drawn work. “The old school studios will have pictures up on the wall and design books for you to look through,“ says head tattooist Darren Brauders. “We focus more on custom designs. Most people will come into us with a clear ideas of what they want, something they’ve seen online or maybe something they’ve drawn themselves. We redraw everything by hand so everybody’s stuff is unique and different.”
Darren, who got his first tattoo at age 15 (since you asked, a Tazmanian Devil that’s long been lasered off!), says that creating a friendly atmosphere is paramount to the staff at Colour Works. “People sometimes feel very intimidated walking into a tattoo studio,” he proffers. “The stereotypical image of a tattoo artist is arrogant, big ego, thinking they’re somebody important and it can turn people off. We’ve never been like that, we’re very friendly, very approachable. We’re just happy to be making money and to keep going.”
Colour Works have had a number of celebrity clients over the years, but Darren’s not telling! What he will say is that he’s seen a lot of flesh in the ten years he’s been tattooing, “I try to do most styles,” he adds, “but I tend to do a lot of Japanese stuff and a lot of sleeves.”
Award-winner Darren says he has word of mouth to thank for the studio’s busy schedule. “We try to maintain a very high standard and be consistent. That’s the only way to keep people happy and keep being successful.“