A craft that’s built to last

The art of dry stonewall building is being revived across the country by the Dry Wall Association. Members from the association showcased their talents at a residence in Drumalee last Saturday afternoon.

Although boasting 700 members, about a dozen members were at the workshop on the outskirts of Cavan Town.

It turns out the workshops lay a strong foundation on which lasting friendships.

“Once we meet once – we are friends for life,” Eddie Farrelly from Cross cheerfully says.

Aside from the social aspect, Ronan Crehan, one of the directors of the Dry Wall Association explained: “Our aim is to promote the craft of drystone walling in Ireland and we are introducing them back into gardens. The walls are similar to the boundary wall you will find in Cavan and in Leinster and they form field and road boundaries. Large coping stones are put on top of the wall to protect it and keep the two sides together”.

Only stones local to an area are used on the walls, they are never imported. The stones dictate the design of the wall.

Ronan explained there are seven key rules which apply to every stone that is laid in the wall and it is possible to learn this essential knowledge at the various workshops.

“Every stone is laid individually and every stone has a purpose and for example we have true, bond, hearting, general rubble stones, and all are the components required to ensure the wall stands the test of time,” said Ronan.

“Some of these structures have been standing for thousands of years, like those at Newgrange and in the Céide Fields in Mayo”.

The Céide Fields survived because they were covered by blanket bog, but Eddie notes that stone walls in the Cavan Burren have survived for at least as long.

“Here in Cavan these walls survived for thousands of years over ground and the reason they survived was because they were in a very inaccessible areas, which were covered in forests. People in the area and tourists were unaware that these walls existed”, said Eddie Farrelly.

One of those participating on Saturday was Michael Fearnhead who lives in Tubbercurry, but was raised on a small farm in the Yorkshire Dales where he learned to repair the stone walls. “I also worked on a farm that had walls that ran for 26 miles and they all had to be maintained,” he recalled.

Drumalee’s Peadar Lafferty said of the workshop: “It is a living history and every time a new wall is constructed, it ensures that the craft survives. We have been taught the seven rules and those ensure it holds together, without any mortar.”