Irish Walls (2)

Irish walls don't always conform to the same 'rules' of British walling.  Here we have a retaining wall consisting of a mix of horizontally coursed stones mixed in with vertically coursed stone and capped with a double course of vertical stones.

(Co Wexford)

In many places in the south west of Ireland stones are placed in a vertical orientation.  These walls are surprisingly easy to build and the walls tighten as they settle.  They are often built without any copes or top stones. 

 A field boundary wall in Co.Waterford built of rough field stone.  Again no copes/topstones

 The same wall - As you can see it has been built within the last 15 years.

(Below).  In many parts of rural West Cork, the hills and land outside cultivation contain miles of these small walls, often no more than a meter in hight and of single stone construction.n the rougher.  They serve no purpose now and both sheep and cattle can easily cross them.  No farmer I spoke to was able to tell me to what original purpose these walls served. 

Irish Drystone Walls

Ireland has the greatest variation in wall than any other country I'm aware. The picture above is from County Clare in the west and this wall is constructed from large slabs of Lisscannor limestone. Like many Irish walls (There called ditches in Ireland) they are filled with till/clay.

In the south west of Ireland especially on and around the Mizen and the Beara peninsular walls are built by placing the stones vertically. This demands a totally different thought process for the waller as demonstrated here on this slope where the builder has had to place longer slabs into the wall to prevent the higher part of the wall sliding down. This builder as is quite normal hasn't got any copes on top but you do sometimes see these walls with a neat top of copes.

To read more:-

This article is based on my observations over ten years living in the southwest of Ireland in County Cork and was originally written for Sean Adcock of the NorthWales branch of the DSWA.

The article as originally written is available as a pdf file here

County Clare in SW Ireland has a landscape similar to the limestone areas of the Yorkshire dales.

Here is a new wall built around 1992 from a combination of field gathered boulders and the copes of limestone slabs from the limestone 'pavement'

Although this might appear to be an untidy example of drystone walling, building with irregular stones such as these is extremely skilled.


More about Irish Stone walls and/or Ditches as they are called, here:- https://david-perry.tripod.com/id4.html

Ireland & walls

On Sherkin Island, just off the coast of Cork in SW Ireland you can find some of the most unusual dry stone walls anywhere.

The specimen on the left is a 'single' wall and is quite common on the island. These are about 3.5ft high.







I'd been on Sherkin several times and never seen this one, until one day on the ferry to birdwatch on Cape Clear island the weather forced the ferryman to take us via the steep eastern side of the island. My eye attracted to a wall on the distant hillside I decided a closer look was in order.

The dog, by the way, is mine and she's Jilly a border collie X retriever.








And so several weeks passed before I had the opportunity. The wall runs for just a couple of hundred yards along the top of steep cliffs. It was built to keep cattle from straying over the cliffs.

So far as I'm aware these are the only pictures in existence of this rather unusually built wall, which still functions to keep cattle out of harms way.

 Excellent modern walling just outside Drimoleague in Co. Cork

The Biggest Drystone Wall in Europe?

On the island of Ireland are some of the most unique walls anywhere in the world. Just to give you a flavour of some of these walls is this one in the Mountains of Mourne in Northern Island. Pictured are the builders and I'll add further unusual walls later. This wall, one of many, is about 12ft tall.

Wall builder Phelim Doran and farmer Dermot Trainor built this wall, one of many using a JCB.

This picture appears with permission of the photographer and originally appeared in "Irish Walls" by Alen MacWeeney and Richard Conniff






Another fine view of one of their walls.  I think both are near Ballymartin co. Down.