Open door call out for mud-walled owners
OWNERS of mud-walled homes across County Wexford are being asked to open their doors as part of a unique open house event taking place called Clayfest 2018.
The initiative is a six-day International Festival of Earthen Architecture which this year will take place in Ireland for the first time - from September 24 to 29.
The south east region of Ireland has the highest density of mud-walled houses in the country and the Irish National Heritage Park in Wexford has been chosen as the venue for the festival.
The event is being organised by Earthen Building UK and Ireland and it’s expected that over 100 earth building enthusiasts, practitioners, professionals, researchers and product-makers from home and abroad will attend.
There will be hands-on, mud-based workshops under the guidance of local and international trainers and the festival will include a conference on day five.
The cost for attending the conference will be €115 while participation in the various workshops throughout the week will cost €85 per day. They will include topics such as: Artistry in
Clay; Clay-Hemp walls; Experiments in Earth block; Reed and Earth plaster; Stone and Earth mortar; Turf walls and roofs; Upcycled cob dome; Wattle and Daub and Mud-wall repair.
There will be a Ceili at the Crannog on Friday, September 28, with tickets priced €35.
A spokesperson for the organisers said the general public are welcome to join in and no previous knowledge of earth building is necessary. After the week of construction and discussions the focus of attention will shift to some of Ireland’s best-preserved earthen buildings including site visits.
It will be the 11th open house event organised by Earthen Building UK and Ireland and the call to home-owners in County Wexford includes those living in mud-walled houses, those who own a building with a beaten earth floor, a gable built from turf, or those who have mud-mortar
An example of artistry in clay; building with earth blocks.
between stone or earth plasters on their walls.
The organisers are also interested in hearing from people who may have undertaken an earth-based eco-build in recent years who are willing to let people visit their home ‘for an hour or two’ on Saturday, September 29.
Féile Butler, who is a Director with Earthen Building UK and Ireland, said opening the doors of their homes could prove very beneficial to the owners as the people visiting will include leading international experts in the area of mull-walled construction.
That means if the owners themselves have any queries about their homes they will have a very well-informed, captive audience to get information from.
‘You may never have thought to much about living within mud walls,’ said Ms Butler.
‘Be prepared to meet a bunch of curious and appreciative people ready to be inspired by your home.’
Ms Butler went on to comment: ‘ Most of the population has no idea that earthen buildings exist in Ireland, that they can be comfortable and suitable for modern living, and that they don’t actually wash away!’
‘At a time when we are looking for solutions to climate change we need to get serious about one of the most sustainable materials out there – earth,’ she added.
The open house tour will be a self-drive initiative with the organisers providing an itinerary and directions 24-hours in advance.
There will be a web page dedicated to the tour, similar to the main Clayfest page, with pictures and information about the buildings.
Homeowners who get involved in the tour can expect between 30 and 50 people to visit their property over a couple of hours on the day it takes place.
For people visiting the event there will be a return shuttle service from Ferrybank camp site and Redmond Square to the National Heritage Park between 9 a.m. and 5.15 p.m. throughout the week with the return journey costing €3.80.
Tickets must be booked 48 hours in advance and the organisers say it will not be possible to book a ticket within 48 hours of intended travel.
Anyone interested in putting their mudwalled building forward for consideration on the tour route is asked to contact Féile Butler on 086-8068382; 071-9300488 or at email feile@ebuki.co. TRY picturing for a moment in your mind’s eye, your book collection or your photographs, or for those of us from a certain vintage, your CD collection. Now, imagine, if all the ones we would never read again, nor look at nor listen to, were illuminated on the shelves or in the albums, shining out at us. Chances are it would be the bulk of what we hold so dear.
But we keep them and cherish them. And yet, sooner than we hope, the day will arrive when they are chucked into the skip. No longer will they bare testament to what it was we were, but nonetheless, we gather them and hold them sacred.
We are a collecting species. We struggle to offload. We surround ourselves with a deluge of wrappings and trappings that we feel, say something about who or what we are. Sad isn’t it? Sad that eventually the task will fall to some of our offspring to load up that wheelbarrow and toss away. And as the chains from the lifting lorry rattle and jangle against the sides of the disappearing skip, they are like the last ringing death knell of a life lived. A whole life or lives, off to the landfill graveyard.
Old vases, chipped crockery and one handled pots. Formica, plywood and lino. Lampshades and cardigans. Brown envelopes and paper bags full of receipts and records of the past. Our homes of wallpaper and carpets that held every echo of our being, are stripped, de-cluttered and gutted. Empty and hollow. In her poem ‘The Lonely House’, Scarlett Treat, an American writer from Jug Fork, Mississippi, describes this emptiness and loss. The house is empty now,
And lonely in its abandonment. The family who used to be here, The one who kept the house warm, And lived in and loved,
Has gone far, far away.
Death has taken the grandparents, The history keepers, the ones With tales to tell of ‘How it used to be,’ And ‘When I was young!’ And adulthood has moved the children To the distant corners of the world, No longer to be part of the laughter Which kept the house alive and happy. And their children no longer know about The house where love lived,
I guess this inevitability is right up there with death and taxes. Unavoidable. De-hoarding the home of the hoarders and breaking into their many dust-covered personal time-capsules is a poignant time. But it has to be so. Pretty much everything has a lifespan. The seasons come and go and the years roll along, and the wheels keep turning.
Let the sounds of the next generations produce new echoes. Swing on the garden swing again. Believe in the Big Red Man coming down the chimney once more. Looking forward but yet saluting the past is the key, is it not?
Moving in to the next phase, giving the oxygen to the new born and remembering those that went before. This is how Treat concludes her poem. The final line is crucial. Her saying that ‘It hopes’, emphasises that the house never actually died to begin with, but instead, wants, once more, to play it’s part as the Home. So the house sits, waiting and abandoned, As lonely as only an empty house can be, Windows boarded over, doors locked, Shutters closed, against the time when It hopes someone will return again.