The use of clay and mud for building purposes is as old as the hills but how our ancestors used it is still “largely unrecognised and greatly under-appreciated,” according to IT Sligo archaeologist Shirley Markley.
As its “Science Week” finale, IT Sligo will host an event on November 13th and 14th that will shed light on how earth was used in the past and its eco-friendly sustainable use today.
“Earth Building Ireland 2015”, a conference with talks, field-trips and hands-on workshops, will explain ways in which earth has been used through millennia on its own, in mud (cob) walls, often with straw and timber, and as a mortar for stone.
Earthen construction is visible in our landscape from prehistoric burial mounds to medieval churches and in some modern homes.
Earth Building UK & Ireland (EBUKI), the organisation behind the event, comprises earth building practitioners, architects, conservationists and others interested in promoting built heritage and its traditional skills, and their application in modern eco-friendly techniques such as “rammed earth”.
The opening address will be given by the EBUKI chairman Dr Dan Maskell, a research associate at the University of Bath who has specialist knowledge of earth construction in the new build sector.
Joint organiser Shirley Markley says: “The use of earth in construction is largely unrecognised and greatly under-appreciated despite its documentation in archival resources and its identification in the archaeological record.
“Earth has played a significant role in construction from prehistoric times to the early modern period from territorial boundaries to burial mounds and in a plethora of building forms.”
Sligo based architect Féile Butler, who is the other joint organiser, will also speak. She and her husband Colin Ritchie trained in the art of cob building and have built their own cob-and-timber-frame home. Ms Butler is a member of the EBUKI executive board. The organisation was Britain-based until last June when it expanded to incorporate members in Ireland.
Ms Markley says the event reflects the eclectic nature of Science Week. “It will be of interest to a wide cross-section including engineers, planners, stone masons, building surveyors, local authority personnel, house builders as well as having general public appeal. People will see at first hand the science behind earth construction – why it works the way it does.”
The conference will hear lectures by Ireland’s and Britain’s leading earth building experts and participants can visit several earthen buildings, including Keeloges late medieval church and graveyard, Ballaghnatrillick, near Cliffoney, Co Sligo.
Ms Markley, lectures in Medieval Archaeology at IT Sligo and is in her third year of doctoral research at Trinity College Dublin. She lives in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim.
She will detail findings from her extensive field surveys of more than 300 historic high status buildings in Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon. They throw new light on the early use of earth and earth mortar in construction, using sand, silt, clay and gravel mixed with water into a bonding agent.
“In archaeology, earth is commonly looked on as a material of necessity used by the poorest people in society and it has come to be associated principally with 19th century Famine cabins and agricultural buildings.
“However, my research shows that for centuries earlier, in the late Medieval Gaelic period, earth and earthen mortar was widely used as a material of choice by both the higher and lower classes in defensive, domestic, industrial and agricultural buildings and by the Church in ecclesiastical buildings.
“The Anglo-Normans, when they came into Ireland in 1169AD, built stone castles some of which used earth as the medium to hold the masonry together. They certainly weren’t poor and they could have afforded to build with lime mortar but in very many cases they chose instead a tradition that has been highly effective since prehistoric times.
“Gradually, the homes of the ‘ordinary people’ disappeared. However, the evidence of earth built and earth mortared masonry is still there in the remains of high status structures. Often, exterior lime mortar was used during their building or in later repair work.”
Others speakers include master stone mason and author Patrick McAfee, Anna Meehan of the Heritage Council, and Hugh Mac Conville, whose photographs feature in the book “Ireland’s Earthen Houses” written by Frank McDonald and Peigin Doyle.
Visit www.ebuk.uk.com for booking tickets and more information on the conference programme.
Photo Caption:
IT Sligo archaeologist Shirley Markley conducting building survey and recording on the remains of the 13th century earth mortared Kilteasheen Hall House at Knockvicar, Boyle, Co. Roscommon.