Irish Marketplace Launches Facemasks Designed and Made in Ireland.

The Biscuit Marketplace, the brainchild of serial entrepreneur Tara Prendergast, is offering a range of designer facemasks, handmade by a selection of crafters in Ireland. By removing any fees for vendors, Prendergast has ensured there is now a one-stop-shop for the Irish public interested in buying well-made and wearable
facemasks.

“I was seeing so many people looking for masks and not being able to get them, while also speaking to makers who were producing the masks, but not able to reach an audience. I knew I had to do something,” said Cork woman Tara Prendergast. “To streamline the process of buying and selling the masks, I removed any vendor fees and basically gave the crafters space on The Biscuit Marketplace to reach as many people as possible.”

Prendergast, well known in the creative space in Ireland for her Ted Talk The Creative Revolution, has spent the last five years committed to empowering Irish makers and designers to reach a whole new audience online. The Biscuit
Marketplace, which was recently relaunched to appeal to an international audience, is but one element of the former restauranteur’s ambitious mission to revolutionise Irish design.

Her private membership community, The Biscuit Factory, incubates creatives and makers and supports them with business advice and strategy. Her Bite the Biscuit Facebook group has more than 7,000 members and connects creatives with buyers and supporters. The Biscuit Marketplace is Tara’s newest venture and aims to promote the very best of Irish design.

“While empowering designers to turn their craft into a financially viable business is at the heart of what I do, now is a time for larger players like myself to put profit aside for the greater good,” said Tara. “By removing the fees, the makers can sell their masks for less than if they had that overhead; only one of them cost more than €10.”

Tara, and the makers, go to lengths to ensure that the masks are used responsibly.
“We know that nothing is going to work as well as hand hygiene and social distancing. But the evidence is suggesting that facemasks, when used correctly, could add another level of protection to those around us,” said Tara. “There’s a worry that if facemasks are encouraged or made mandatory by the NPHET, PPE masks will become even harder to source for those that need them most. I hope that the general public will buy their own washable and beautiful facemasks from independent makers, which will reduce the scary competition for PPE needed by health workers.”

The Biscuit Marketplace’s selection of facemasks can be found here;
www.thebiscuitmarketplace.com/category/covid-masks/

The website also includes facemasks by Sligo based artist Lorna Watkins:
https://thebiscuitmarketplace.com/shop/cloth-of-heaven/

For further information or to speak to Tara or some of the makers, please email her
on tara@biscuit.ie.