Pursuing the ancient craft of making stones talk

Lifestyle – Francis Kennedy meets stonemason turned sculptor Cormac O’Reilly

‘I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free’ – Michelangelo.

To watch Cormac O’Reilly working with his mallet and chisel on a piece of Kilkenny limestone is an education in itself. Here is a man who loves his work, loves his natural raw material and carefully, patiently, chips away at it until he has created a work of art. He makes it look so easy, almost like carving through a lump of butter.

Cormac has been invited to exhibit his work at Sculpture in Context which will take place at the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin later this year.  This is the largest and most prestigious outdoor sculpture exhibition in Ireland, showcasing the work of Irish and international artists. Over the years it has staged highly acclaimed visual arts events at a number of different venues. Cormac also had a piece there in 2014 called Poet – a lettered carving with a quote from the Patrick Kavanagh poem Father Matt.

Of this year’s exhibition piece, Legacy of Faith, Cormac says: “This piece is inspired by the monastic settlement on Sceilig Mhichíl, off the Kerry coast. Within the piece are two contrasting figures– one conveys the humanity of the monks, the other represents their architectural legacy. The overall form is of the island itself. These men found courage and dignity enough for all of us in their faith and left us a wealth of inspiration in their architecture, writings and everything else they left behind. They were not motivated by logic or self interest; they were just inspired. This piece took approximately 240 hours to carve, the idea took 37 years!”

Legacy of Faith was carved from a limestone block measuring 30 by 28 by 13 inches, which he began working on last March. The stone weighed about 454kilos before he started to carve it. The finished piece weighs 75 kilos, an indication of how much material was removed in the initial ‘roughing-out’ stage.

Cormac started building with stone more than twenty years ago with his father Máirtín, a stonemason in Ballyconneely, Connemara. Máirtín taught his son how to build stone walls and to clad houses with rubble. The two travelled Ireland together and had a lot of laughs in the van on those long journeys. During that time the younger man also learned a lot about architecture and the different qualities of the various types of building stone around the country. He then worked for himself from 2001, again travelling around the country building entrances, pillars, fireplaces and cladding houses in many different types of stone.

Cormac explains how he made the transition from building stone walls to stone carving. “I started carving wooden figures around 2007 when things slowed down with the stone building. I learned as much about carving as I could from the internet and books. I started out carving caricature figures of cowboys but once I got a handle on the techniques, I quickly moved on to stone and started developing my own style as a stone carver. At the same time I also began learning letter cutting.”

He uses traditional stonemasonry techniques in his work. Apart from an angle-grinder which he uses to get rid of the bulk waste, he uses only hand tools to finish his work.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.