Last Saturday was National Drawing Day, which was a great excuse to dust off my watercolour set can dig out my pencil case. The Dry Stone W

Dry Stone Canada Stone Festival. Amherst Island, Ontario, Canada. In late September Canada’s dry stone wall association Dry Stone Canada returned to the location of their 2015 and 2018 festivals on Amherst Island, to hold their annual dry stone festival. This years festival saw a large number of projects and workshops take place, with people from many different countries in attendance including DSWAI members Sunny Wieler and Ken Curran. The Stone Foundation were also invited

Earlier in the year I was commissioned under the Per Cent for Art scheme to create a sculpture for a secondary school in Drogheda Co. Louth. The brief was to create a piece to commemorate the transition of the school from its humble beginnings into the new extensive extension, the sculpture is based on the subject of the movement of  time. Our history traced through stone. The permanence of stone means that much of what we know about our past has been discovered through exami

September was a busy month for stone festivals. First we returned to ‘The Gathering of Stones‘ site to put the final arch in place and to make plans for the final push to completion of our dry stone monument. Then with little respite the clan regrouped on Inis Oirr Island for our annual trip out to Féile na gCloch (Festival of Stone). But before I had time to absorb the fun had on Inis Oirr island, I had to rush home to repack my bag to catch my flight to another great stone

Well the stone festival season is well and truly upon us. This year I started my festival season with a trip to Austria’s largest wine-producing town, Langenlois. The wine however was just a indulgence and not my main reason for traveling here. And as much as I like a ‘dry’ white wine, it was in fact the ‘dry’ stone I was here for. But before I can reminisce about hot weather and cold wine I have to go back to The Gathering of Stones 2013 to when we met Helmut Schieder. Helmu

Almost a year late, but here is the story of my involvement in Bloom in the Park garden show last year. Picking up icy cold stones in January of 2013 as the winter was slowly easing its grip on the country, I powered on through the cold in a bid to get my outdoor classroom project completed for my May deadline. It was during this time that I was contacted by renowned Irish landscape designer Tim Austen. A regular medal winner at Bloom, Tim was designing a large garden for the

So two weekends ago I made my annual retreat to Inis Oirr, the smallest of the three islands that make up the Arran Islands in Galway bay. Although this was only my third year attending Feile na gCloch (Festival of Stone) it feels like I have been coming here for many years. Despite the fact that I was born and raised in west Cork, arriving on the island I get an relaxed feeling of familiarity and a sense of coming home. This is the effect this island has on you. It is a worl

After months of anticipation, stones, masons and dry-stone enthusiasts from the four corners of Ireland as well as the rest of the world came to a head in the center of Ireland. June 20th 2013 marked the beginning of The Gathering of Stones. Stories were shared, songs were sung (and written) and monuments were built. Just like the cross marked the spot in the posters, the ‘Emigrant Stones’ mark the centre of our dry stone monument. From the beginning. Last summer after Feile

Miniature stoneworks may look like the real deal close up, but they are in fact far more complicated to build and also cannot withstand the same abuse as large scale stonework. In general stonework can take a lot of abuse , only really taking damage by human error when being hit by a vehicle or if poorly built. Miniature stoneworks are a lot more fragile, a dangling sleeve,a strong gust of wind or even  placing a stone with too much conviction can bring the whole thing crumbl

Last weekend I attended my first dry stone walling workshop on Inis Oírr Island. And I am already looking forward to going back next year. For those of you who don’t know where Inis Oírr (Inisheer) is, it is the smallest of the three islands that make up the Aran Islands in Galway Bay. As a location for a dry stone walling workshop, I could not imagine a better place, as Inis Oírr has some of the finest examples of drystone walls in the country. Altogether the Aran Islands ha