WHILE it’s uncommon to see men wearing tunics in 2025, this isn’t the case at the Abbey Medieval Festival.
Walloon man Terry Kennedy has many tunics and wears them during re-enactments.
He’s a medieval history buff who also hand-makes replicas of old world instruments, implements, tools and furniture.
Tickets to this year’s Abbey Medieval Festival in Caboolture sold out within days of going on sale and it’s estimated around 50,000 people rocked up and frocked up the two days it was on.
Dressing to the period is encouraged, people raid their closets and charity shops to find things to adapt and make look authentic.
Not Terry though, he’s a stickler for accuracy.
“I hand-stitch my clothing using natural fibres. I make linen tunics and trousers as accurately as possible,” he said.
“I bought my shoes from a company that make historically accurate shoes.
“They weren’t uncomfortable but you need to get used to them because they can be slippery on wet grass.”
Terry became interested in medieval re-enactment after joining a group called Jorth Gar that put on live action displays from the Viking era on Tamborine Mountain.
“I didn’t realise it at the time, but they also went to the medieval festival, so when Covid started to ease off and I had about 12 instruments made, I decided to connect with them,” he said.
“After studying Viking era archaeological finds, I decided to dive even deeper and read about a woman who’d written her Master’s thesis on the bits and pieces of instruments that had been dug up.
“I thought ‘ooh I might try and copy these’ not really having any ideas of my own, just wanting to recreate them as they were back then.
“I made the first one and enjoyed it, so I did some research and found a dozen or so different ones all based on archaeological finds from the Viking area.”
Two weeks ago the Jorth Gar member packed his car to the brim with historical replicas and headed to Caboolture.
“I’VE MADE the items mostly out of wood that I have found,” he said.
I’ve made little stools and things that help weavers with their spinning like bobbins.
“I’ve made cups, plates and really just any little historical finds from that era that I can reproduce in timber.”
Terry had many of these on display at the festival.
He is also a proficient English longbow archer and he joined around 30 other archers in a competition at the festival.
“We have a traditional archery shooting competition where you shoot at a target,” he explained.
“I had a decent score and progressed to the next round which was shooting at two little [fake] rabbits on a sled.
“The next was to shoot an apple off a dummy’s head.
“I made it through to that round but bombed out because I haven’t shot much this year.”
There are also jousting competitions where everything other than the lances are historically accurate.
“Tickets to watch the jousting were sold out,” Terry said.
“People came from overseas to compete.”
The lances are made from balsa wood because a metal lance would make the re-enactment a little too real and dangerous.
Terry’s knightly duties have been stood down until next year’s festival, the only dragons he’s handling now are the dragonfruit growing in his Walloon garden.
