Tully Crafts

Tully Crafts

Tully Crafts was built on a simple belief - that every LGBTQ+ person deserves to see their identity represented.

At Athlone’s first Heartland’s Pride Festival, held in Burgess Park on a wet Saturday in June, the sun was struggling to break through but the colours were everywhere. Kylie blared from the speakers as about a dozen crafts vendors and exhibitors set up their stands, all enjoying themselves despite the inclement weather.
 
A parade danced its way into the park to officially open the festival. You could hear the parade coming long before you could see it - the cheering and whooping carrying across the Shannon as it made its way down through the town. Master of ceremonies Eddie McGuinness was resplendent in a Barnum-style multicoloured outfit, riding in a black Porsche alongside a local celebrity. Behind him came Macnas-style characters, dogs wrapped in rainbow colours and drag queens in sequined gowns and orange shiny thigh-high boots. The heels were killing some of them but they persevered. 

The busiest stall at the festival was the Tully Truck, offering reversible beanie hats, badges, flags, magnets, keyrings, jewellery, artwork and more, with every item made to reflect a specific identity within the LGBTQ+ spectrum. Mildred, as they call their shop-on-wheels, is operated by Charley and Dee Utting, the daughter and mother team behind Tully Crafts, which has grown from modest beginnings to becoming Ireland’s largest LGBTQ+ retailer.

Dee Utting is the mother half of the partnership. Now in her early sixties, she is a gender non-conforming woman who has been active in the LGBTQ+ community throughout her adult life. Originally from England, she came to County Leitrim to live off-grid with her husband Nigel on their smallholding. Dee makes all of the knitted and crochet items, most of the jewellery, and a small number of the sewn pieces.

Charley, her daughter, is a Bi/Pan and Greyromantic woman in her early thirties who moved to Leitrim from Leicester. She runs the business’s website, manages all the shipping, and handles the digital artwork behind the product range. Charley’s dad Nigel, who took early retirement following a spinal injury, is also involved, making the badges.

To understand why Tully Crafts does what it does, it helps to understand what it means to someone to see their identity represented. “We know how important it is to know that ‘You Are Not Alone’,” Charley explains. “By simply attending a Pride, with our range of total inclusivity, we save lives - it’s that simple. After a Pride event we attended in 2022, an individual messaged us to say that they had planned for attending the event to be their last goodbye to the world. But because we had their flag among our items, they knew they must not be the only one, and that gave them the strength to carry on and go home that evening. They are now getting married this year.”

Tully Crafts tracks emerging LGBTQ+ communities carefully, ready to respond. “We are well aware there are some LGBTQ+ identities that have not yet reached consensus on their flag design,” says Charley. “Once they have we will be adding them to our range. We have several ideas for new products while maintaining our quality standard.”

The leap from physical markets to e-commerce came partly through circumstance. In 2020, as live events fell away, Tully Crafts supplied flags for Pride Inside, which sold them through its own online shop. 
“That gave me an insight into how to run an online shop, and with that experience I was able to get our site up and running,” Charley recalls. “It was so easy for me to set up our shipping costs, as we knew we’d be using An Post, and they make their pricing very clear and accessible.”

Today, tullycrafts.com ships worldwide, with regular orders going to Europe, Britain and the USA, and at least one memorable delivery reaching as far as Thailand. At busy periods in the run-up to Pride season, An Post’s pre-paid packaging keeps the operation moving. “I always have some prepaid packets to hand so I can quickly dispatch items for our customers,” Charley explains. Because many of the items are one-of-a-kind handcrafted pieces, the business maintains separate stock pools for the Tully Truck and for the online shop.

As Pride Week 2026 arrives, Tully Crafts stands as a compelling example of what community-centred enterprise can look like. From a folding table at Mayo Pride to a converted truck, a global website and a range spanning scores of identities, Charley and Dee Utting have built something that measures its worth not in turnover but in lives touched.

Tully Crafts ships worldwide via An Post. Browse the full range at www.tullycrafts.com