Two Offaly teenagers have been hired as apprentice coopers at the Tullamore Distillery.
Dylan Healion, 18, and 19-year-old Corey Bracken are learning the centuries-old trade from head cooper Enguerrand Vandenbossche. It is the first time in 66 years that the distillery has had an operational cooperage.
Thousands of coopers were once working in Ireland, but now there are only five.
Both Corey and Dylan say they would like to see a revival of coopering in the country.
"I want to stay here, I'm a homebird like that, I'd like to see myself here and maybe in the future have my own apprentice and continue on the craft," Corey said.
Dylan echoed his sentiments, adding that it is a "fantastic feeling" to be involved in the "tradition of the craft".
French cooper Mr Vandenbossche, who worked in the Champagne and Cognac regions of France before relocating to a cooperage in Scotland, moved to Ireland to lead the reopening of the Tullamore cooperage as he said the demand for barrels is booming now.
"I think at the moment a lot of the distilleries are working with the Scottish coopers to get the barrel ready, but I mean, at some point the industry will be saturated and we'll need more coopers here," Mr Vandenbossche said.
"I want to see that happening, I want to see coopers being trained here and the country being self-sufficient with coopers."
He has been very impressed by his two apprentices so far.
"It’s a very intense apprenticeship, they need to be able to do most of the technique we used 100 years ago by hand, I like this because this is what makes the difference between an operator in a cooperage and a real cooper, the real cooper knows how things are done by hand," he explained.
"They’re learning fast, they’re very motivated which is amazing. They're already showing great skills but they have time, they have four years, so after four years they will be the best, they’ll be better than me."
