SPAB Ireland Working Party 2017

By Tríona Byrne, 2016 SPAB Scholar

In February this year, a group of Irish Scholars, Fellows and Guardians banded together to found an Irish branch of the SPAB. Shortly afterwards, we were fortunate enough to secure funding from the Heritage Council to host the first Irish Working Party as part of Heritage Week, which takes place in August every year.

Our Working Party was scheduled to run over 4 days, from 24-27 August. From early June, we began planning in earnest. We knew we would need to raise an amount of match funding in order to claim the Heritage Council funding. Our newly-formed Events Committee rose to the challenge, organising both a social event and a fundraiser in the form of a table quiz. This event was a resounding success – over 20 teams such as ‘The Coarse Aggregates’ and ‘Cobbled Together’ battled it out over the evening to answer questions on a range of topics, including several built heritage rounds, of course. We raised more than enough money to cover our funding shortfall and it was a brilliant social gathering of conservation enthusiasts in Dublin too. From there, the preparation continued with gusto – our wonderful committee, led by SPAB Scholar and project manager for the event, Mary Kerrigan, put in hours and hours of time organising every last detail. Eventually on 23 August, we decamped to Derry-Londonderry to begin.

As this was our first time hosting a Working Party, and we had little to no event organisation experience, we started small; the focus of the work for the four days was the repair of a rubble stone garden wall running alongside an end-of-terrace house on the beautiful De Burgh Terrace. We had 12 participants on each of the 4 days, two different sets of 12 people for two days each, plus lots of SPAB Ireland committee members, local neighbours and volunteers taking part so we were full to capacity for the small site.

Our principal goal for the Working Party was for people to learn how to prepare and work with hot-mixed lime mortars, and to feel confident using and specifying the material in future. It was also an excellent opportunity to spread the SPAB philosophy, which has thus far been relatively unknown in Ireland.

We were led by SPAB Fellow Eoin Madigan, a sixth generation stonemason, and SPAB Scholar & Guardian Conor Meehan, who shared their expertise with the enthusiastic volunteers. We were well looked after by the lovely local community who provided delicious meals and roofs over our heads, and everyone took part with great spirit in our evening activities. These included a tapas dinner one night and a garden BBQ another night provided by the owner of the garden wall, walking tours of the both the Clarendon Street Conservation Area and the City Walls, along with a BBQ on the final night in the beautiful Dunmore Gardens, Co. Donegal. The great community spirit of the local neighbourhood was so evident and the fact that they welcomed us with open arms made sure the event exceeded our expectations.

Overall, we are delighted with how well the Working Party went and was received by everyone who took part, and it has proved to us that there is a great appetite for the work we are doing with the SPAB in Ireland, which is hugely encouraging. Watch this space!

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