About Dry Stone
Building dry stone means building using just stone without any mortar.
At EarthStone there is no pretense; we build all our dry stone walls and structures without any mortar.
We in EarthStone use a technique to build dry stone that has existed for thousands of years.
Examples of dry stone walls can be found on the island of Ireland that dates back to the Neolithic Period (5000-2500B.C.). These dry stone field systems are some of the oldest stone constructions in the country.
At EarthStone we believe that dry stone construction as a practice played an intangible role in the development of culture and art here in Ireland.
Once people began to build field walls they were able to work the land, grow crops and practice animal husbandry. They were able to settle down. The change from a hunter-gatherer existence to a settled one allowed community and civility to be born. People then had time to think about things like values and beliefs, art, and astronomy.
The sun, the moon, the stars became more relevant....and what they meant to them was shared and demonstrated. It was the same culture that built Ceide Fields which built the great Passage Tombs. These dry stone sites are one of Ireland's most enigmatic dry stone monuments and they act as timeless solar and lunar constructs marking the changing of the seasons and the constant motion of life and death.
At EarthStone we believe that stonework began with dry stone walling and evolved from there. So we have gone back to the source and are developing our stone-building techniques forward from there. Needless to say, the list of modern and creative applications of dry stone is endless and much of what we do at EarthStone is a contemporary application of an ancient technique. The one constant in our dry stonework is the adherence to the principles of building dry without any need for mortar.
As you can see we are passionate at EarthStone about dry stone construction and its place in Irish culture and traditional crafts. So if you contact Ken to talk dry stone you can be assured he will do his best to find a way to help you with whatever you might need be it fixing up some old stock-proofing walls, moving a historic wall, or creating a landscape feature or entrance.
There is no mystery to building dry stone; just a skill and understanding of the material and how best to work with it to create stable constructions.
For more information on dry stone try some of the links below: