Here is a look at my latest outdoor classroom project I completed recently. In early 2015 Scoil Mhuire National School in Lucan, Co. Dublin put out a tender to commission a creative outdoor space for the students to utilise for years to come. It was commissioned under the government’s ‘Percent for Art Scheme‘ which allocates 1% of the building cost of any public building to the installation of an art project. The school prides itself on its commitment to sport and creativity.

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

On the fourth weekend of September I once again headed off to Inis Oirr (Inisheer) on the Aran Islands for this year’s Feile na gCloch (Festival of Stone). The festival is organised and run by the country’s most knowledgeable and experienced drystone waller, Patrick McAfee, in conjunction with the wonderful Marie Mannion, Heritage Officer of Galway County Council and Paddy Crowe, manager of the Inis Oirr Cooperative. Every year this event seems to get bigger and bigger, as do

On Monday a few of the members of the association met up at the foot of The Rock of Cashel to promote both the DSWA of Ireland and Fellow association member  Tom Pollard’s Fly a flag for Ireland campaign, for a segment to be shown on an RTE documentary “How to be Irish” Tom’s Fly a flag for Ireland campaign is looking to put some colour, positivity and pride back in our Country. Showing our elected representatives and European neighbours that we are a proud and colourful inde

As the winter solstice is coming up, I thought it would be an appropriate time to talk about one of Ireland’s oldest and most impressive stone structures. I am talking of course about Newgrange in County Meath. (County Meath  is well known as Ireland’s Heritage Capital) According to the most reliable Carbon 14 dates available from archaeology, it is believed that Newgrange (or Sí an Bhrú as it is know in Irish) was constructed over 5,000 years ago, around 3200BC. This makes

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