‘Every now and again I get an itch. I need new ink’: Hundreds of tattooists at convention

A far cry from the Horse Show or election counts, everyone at the RDS over the weekend was getting tattooed.The buzz of electric needles was constant on Sunday, the last day of this year’s Dublin Tattoo Convention, which saw 300 tattoo artists from home and abroad set up shop.At almost every stall at any moment, someone was being tattooed, with needles etching flowers, Pokémon and skulls.And that’s not including what was on offer in countless displays and brochures, with designs ranging from Mr Bean and Disney princesses to what appeared to be demonic children.READ MORE“I just need something. I’ve got an itch, and I need to scratch the itch,” Timmy Hajster, flipping brochure pages almost frantically, tells a tattooist.[ Twenty tattoo tips from professionals: Avoid trends, find the right artist and don’t be afraid to speak upOpens in new window ]The 50-year-old South African, who lives in Dublin where she works in a pharmacy, has a full tattoo sleeve on one arm, a half sleeve on the other and more tattoos on her legs.“Every now and again I get an itch. I need new ink,” she says.“Why? That’s a good question. I don’t know ... I like the ink on my skin ... It’s gorgeous, and everything means something to me.”Jay Halamickova from Dublin gives a tattoo to Londoner Aimee Togher at The Dublin Tattoo Convention. Photo: Tom Honan/The Irish Times. Pain thresholds evidently vary among those under the needle. Some are catatonic, staring into the abyss, potentially exhausted from the discomfort, while others, like Ben O’Reilly, speak highly of the process itself.“I got a small ... Ehm ... What would you call it ... What would you call that tattoo you did for me today, Sam? It’s like a dog? A goat?” he asks his tattoo artist.“It’s a goat,” Sam replies.“Yeah, it’s like a kind of a satanic sort of a goat,” O’Reilly says.The 36-year-old from Co Kilkenny says getting tattooed is “therapeutic”.“I enjoy the whole process. Like, I feel really good now. I feel really uplifted.“It’s a special thing for some people, getting tattooed. The whole process and stuff makes me feel like I’m in the now. I’m in the moment, and I don’t think about anything else. I think it’s really hard to find that in life.”"Scratchy" Miguel Dowling posing at the RDS. Photo: Tom Honan/The Irish Times Down another aisle of endless buzzing and moody music, French tattoo artist Millette Legile is wearing a torch on her forehead as she tattoos 27-year-old Stephen Dagger.“More and more people are wanting to have not only something that is meaningful, but to have a piece of art on their skin,” she says.Asked to spell his surname, Dagger, from Navan, Co Meath, says it is the “same as the weapon I’m getting done”, pointing to his semi-tattooed thigh, on which a skull and dagger is emerging.“You’re the canvas,” he says, when asked why he likes tattoos.Nearby, Fernando Villanueva, a 27-year-old from Mexico, winces and grips a surface for dear life. He is getting a sleeve tattoo, which will ultimately cover half of his arm. It is his first tattoo.“I’m starting to think maybe it wasn’t a good idea,” he says, laughing and somehow grinding his teeth simultaneously. “I thought this was not going to be so painful.”Asked how much Villanueva’s tattoo will cost, his Ukrainian tattoo artist, Maksym Yakubchyk says: “A lot of money and pain”.A full arm sleeve would generally be €3,000 or €4,000, he says.One of the convention’s organisers, Martin McIver, who owns the Wildcat Electric Temple studio on South William Street in Dublin, says the general customer base is “growing”.The art form is becoming “far more acceptable” in the workplace, he believes, adding that the stereotype of who might have a tattoo is “100 per cent” dead.“In my career, I’ve seen judges, politicians, chiefs of police. You don’t know what’s underneath here,” he says, grabbing his collar.The industry is not free from challenges, however.“AI is a big challenge at the moment. It’s a very divisive subject in our industry,” he says, noting that customers are increasingly bringing AI-generated art in the hope a tattoo artist will replicate it, though some find the practice “quite offensive”.“We’re obviously not fans, we think art should be drawn by people.”