On a bright Saturday in September, in a clockmaker’s workshop surrounded by farmland in the western Irish county of Clare, three curious students bent over workbenches covered with clock parts. For the first time, they were trying out some of the clockmaker’s tools: pliers, tweezers, hammers, hand vises, tongs and more. A turf fire warmed the room.

It was the first day of a weekend course on antique clock repair, taught by Nigel Barnes, a fifth-generation horologist who has been offering the classes since 2008, introducing people to clock making and having them undertake some rudimentary repairs. (In 2008 Mr. Barnes and his wife, Pepie O’Sullivan, an antique furniture restorer and upholsterer, also started offering furniture restoration and chair-making courses through their business, Oldchairs.)

Just after 9 a.m. this particular day, Mr. Barnes, 75, began the session with a brief introduction to time itself: “It’s necessary. You’ve got to know the background to understand clocks.” He talked about various civilizations and their philosophies of time, including the ancient Egyptians, who had 12-hour days and 12-hour nights.

Next, pointing at one of the clocks on his desk, he moved on to discussing a clock’s parts: “One of the ground rules is when you take this clock apart, there is no part in this clock that is called ‘thing,’” he said with a laugh. “So, you learn the words. If you don’t know what it’s called, ask.”

Then, at about 10:30 a.m., he set the students to work.

On one side of the room, at a deep window seat that had been turned into a workbench, was Seán Martin, 75, from Salthill, a suburb of Galway about 40 miles north. He was examining the parts of a wall clock made in the 1870s by the New Haven Clock Company of Connecticut — a mass-produced piece that Mr. Barnes said would have been a status symbol in rural Ireland at the time.