The rural village of Cloughjordan in Co. Tipperary is the last place you might
expect to see three Zimbabwean artists strolling to work, chisels in hand, singing softly
in their native Shona tongue. The three young men in question were invited to Ireland by
Fergus in May of 1997 as part of what he envisaged as a cultural exchange. In effect the
story is a much older one, one that Fergus says goes back to his first encounters with
African art when he was a young child. Fergus's late father, Comdt Michael Costello, a
soldier, first alerted Fergus to the primal splendour of African Art through various
carvings brought back from his time of service in the Congo. His collection adorned the
mantelpiece of the Costello family home during Fergus's formative years. 
Later Fergus was to rekindle his connection with African art as he travelled to Nigeria where he worked for a time during the early eighties. Ten years later there followed another mission to the continent, this time to apartheid South Africa where a bishop had invited him to foster religious art among the black community. Then in 1997 Fergus set off to Zimbabwe and returned to Ireland with three Zimbabwean artists - Silas Shayanawako, Stefani Rotani, and Paradzai Havatitye. The three young men are now learning new skills at the studio and also demonstrating their own unique talents.
The three Zimbabwean artists are participating in what Fergus sees as a programme of cultural exchange. They have now completed a year of training at the studio and have made themselves very much at home in Ireland. Fergus too is pleased with the new recruits, their decision to come to the studio thrilled him as he rates the Shona tribe as being among the best wood carvers in the world.