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Almost 30 people building a dry stone wall as part of the festival. Maria Delaney/The Journal
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How a festival in Donegal is bringing back the ancient craft of wall building
It’s going to be a dry stone summer…
EYEING THE PILE of stones, one is spotted that just might fit. Its size and shape is quickly assessed as it is carried over.
“Try the flat side. We can build on top of that.”
The heavy stone is lifted and turned. A smaller one hammered underneath. Initially shaky, it becomes solid. Destined now to sit there for decades to come.
This is main activity of the Tír Chonaill Stone Festival which is taking place this weekend in Ballyshannon Co Donegal. It is one of a number of such stone-themed events this summer.
Louise Price, has been one of the main organisers of the festival since it began in 2014. “It’s hard work and, at the same time, relaxing.”
The nature of the craft makes it a ‘meitheal’ experience, she explains, “an ancient Irish word for cooperative work”. This type of shared work is common in farming communities across the world. “That’s the way we lived for a very long time.”
There has been a resurgence in hand skills including dry stone wall building, she says, as people are “looking for something more authentic in their lives”.
With schemes such as the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant as well as the high cost of labour, she adds that more people are learning these skills themselves.
Price herself “was hooked” to the craft after she started fixing up an old cottage 15 years ago and learned the skill from men that were doing it up for her.
Hammers and pickaxes are the tools in people’s hands though most have no need for tools as it is the placing of the stone that is the task at hand.
Between trainers (wallers), highly-skilled volunteers and eager-to-learn students, almost 30 people turned up yesterday morning donned in steel-toe boots and work gear. The festival is supported by the local ETB and council.
“This is not only an extremely historic part of Ballyshannon, but it matters a lot as we’re bringing something historic back to life,” Price explains.
The festival moves to a different part of Donegal every year “to allow different communities to enjoy the opportunity”. The wall they’re building this year will form part of a community project, with an orchard planned in the field beside it.
Stone carving is also on offer with a number of students chiselling away under the shadow of Saint Anne’s Church.
It is apt that this is taking place here, according to Barry Sweeny who is part of the Ballyshannon Regeneration Group.
He delicately opens a book with fragile and yellow pages. It is a novel from 1896 by Henry Caldwell Lipsett whose family hailed from the end of the street the church is on.
One of the book’s characters, ‘Old Shan’, was a stone carver whose “favourite haunt” was in the churchyard. Sweeny reads a section that gives an insight into the life of the fictional handyman:
“At the time he did very little work, and used to spend the greater part of his day there stringing rhymes together, while he renewed the inscriptions upon the old weather beaten stones, and made them once more legible.”
This work ethic was not reflected in the builders and carvers yesterday as they were a non-stop team apart from a break for soup and sandwiches at lunch.
The enjoyment of everyone was evident from the high energy chat between munches. The feeling only gained from a well deserved sit down and a satisfying cup of tea after working outdoors.
As the day progressed the piles of stones shrank as they were organised into the 40-metre-long wall.
If you fancy yourself as a waller, other stone festivals are taking place in Fanad Co Donegal and Inis Oírr Co Galway in the coming months. Details of both are not finalised as yet.
Tír Chonaill Stone Festival continues in Ballyshannon from 9am to 4pm today (tirchonaillstonefestival.ie), with the hopes of completing the wall by the time it wraps up.
Not many festival-goers get to leave such a legacy!
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