DSWAI run virtual events for Féile na gCloch, Inis Óirr, Virtual 2020

This year as the world cancels all its events and social gatherings, The Féile na gCloch festival decided to break new ground and take the festival online. Organised by Galway County Council Heritage Office and the Inis Oírr Corporative, this online festival was to be a celebration of all aspects of stone craft from stone wall building to lettering and carving; paving, using hot limes and sketching and more.

The organisers reached out to a number of stone groups and individuals to get involved and help promote our shared stone heritage. Lots of great films and videos were created especially for the event and now remain a great archive of stone heritage. If you haven’t already done so we recommend checking out the archive on the website https://heritage.galwaycommunityheritage.org/content/category/topics/feile-na-gcloch and immerse yourself in stone carving, dry stone walling, paving, letter carving, restoration and mosaic.

For our part, we decided to support the festival by running a miniature dry stone wall building event and, following the great success of our ‘Draw Stone Walls’ sketching event back in May, we decided to run a sketching event alongside the miniature walling.

To encourage participation, it was decided to run the events as competitions, with some great prizes on offer. Both competitions were open to all ages, wherever they were in the world.

To have their art included in our campaign and be in with a chance of winning, participants were asked to post their photos or videos online using the hashtags #FeilenagCloch #drystonewalling and ether #miniaturewalls or #DRAWstonewall.

We were delighted with the response from the public.

We had contributions from: Ireland, Italy, Germany, Austria, UK, Canada, America, Luxembourg and Tasmania. We had 68 sketches from approximately 50 artists and 26 miniature walls.

Many of those who participated told us how being able to participate in wall building and sketching from their homes really made them feel like they were part of the event and gave them that great sense of camaraderie that we all feel when attending stone festivals.