In Ireland, you’ll soon discover that the Irish love to criss-cross the island with dry-stone walls! Preferring natural materials to industrial fencing, they have been piling up stones to delimit their properties since the dawn of time. It’s an action that respects the environment, while adding incredible charm to the country!
In Ireland, we like to leave the environment as it is: raw and wild! And any good hiker will be able to walk along miles and miles of dry-stone walls, built by Irish hands! They are used not only to fence off properties, but also to park flocks of sheep, horses and local livestock. (To avoid escapes or mix-ups between herds of different owners).
This practice dates back to periods when agriculture became sedentary. Working the land and soil would then have given rise to several needs:
To meet these needs, the Irish collected the stones they deemed troublesome, stacking them to form low walls. The advantage of this action was that the view was still unspoilt: nature still reigns supreme, and the Irish still seem rather averse to concreting and digging in the middle of the countryside! The icing on the cake is that these stones are simply stacked on top of each other: few Irish walls use mortar or concrete! These handcrafted walls are unfinished and modular, and their interstices are home to real biodiversity!
And for us, it’s a real feast for the eyes!
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