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I walk up the steep incline to the Rock of Cashel on a sunny summer’s morning, struck by the rugged beauty of the site. I am here to chat with someone who has played an integral part in making sure that our descendants will also get to enjoy the majesty of these imposing buildings.
When you picture a stone cutter, you probably conjure a burly, middle-aged man in a leathern apron. Julia Gebel confounds these stereotypes. She is a young, slightly built, articulate woman, who is extremely passionate and knowledgeable about her craft.
Stone cutting is traditionally seen as a very masculine space and Julia agrees that this still holds true. Her degree course was limited by well-meant, if sexist, assumptions applied to her. It was assumed that she would gravitate towards one of the less physical disciplines like letter cutting and, as a result, she was not encouraged towards some key modules. However, since qualifying, she has been welcomed into the trade and has learned from and collaborated with colleagues from across the world.
Germany to Ireland
Julia was born near Munich and an early enthusiasm for rock climbing and hiking fostered a fascination with stone. It was an unusual career choice but one that she has relished. She remarks that, “I can only say, from my own experience, that I never regretted a single day being on site and doing my job. It is what I love and it’s what I wanted to do. It’s taken a lot of energy at times but it has been worth it!”
You could just see that the stonecutter had a really bad day
Julia made a decision to study stone conservation, before interning with a conservator. She realised that, in order to understand the craft of stonemasonry, she needed to understand how to make these pieces herself. It wasn’t enough to perform repairs, she needed to understand and feel the materials and be able to visualise how they were made, in order to gain mastery of her craft.
Julia worked in Germany and Italy, before making what she describes as an “intuitive” move to Ireland in 2006. She was drawn towards Ireland. Its island status, on the fringes of the continent, caught her imagination. She loved the landscape and found the people here down-to-earth, fun and creative.
Ireland also offered exciting opportunities in her field. There is a wealth of undisturbed medieval structures that didn’t survive in Europe. Ireland offers a blank slate for conservationists to work on. “I think what’s happening in Ireland is phenomenally interesting in that there’s so many totally undisturbed medieval structures, like tower houses, that you can’t find on the continent, because they have been reworked throughout history… It’s a good opportunity to avoid the mistakes that have been made on the continent or in England in the past, where you overwork, you over-restore.”
When she first arrived in Ireland, Julia worked on a restoration project at Ballytarsna Castle. From there, she was offered a role by the Office of Public Works (OPW), working on the restoration of Cormac’s Chapel on the Rock of Cashel. She would spend nine years here and it remains her favourite project to date. While there, she took the opportunity to do a post-graduate degree in Trinity. Her thesis explored the history of the chapel. She was fascinated to trace the literary, cultural and craft exchanges that took place between early medieval Cashel and other European monasteries. She was able to see echoes of Cashel’s architecture in buildings in Regensburg where she had trained. This really brought home the enduring, global nature of her craft and tied her closer to Cashel.
Footprint to history
A typical day for her, while restoring the roof of the chapel, would see her carefully marking out the stones for removal, cataloguing each one and marking its position. Stones would be brought for repair to the OPW yard at Cashel or in some cases to Kilkenny. Where stones had to be replaced, huge care was taken to source sandstone from a similar seam of stone to the one in Drombane that the original stones came from. Each stone had then to be carefully re-laid in its original position.
I put it to Julia that there must be a sense of satisfaction in adding your own footprint to history. Laughing, she agreed, referencing Belvelly Castle in Cork where she recently worked, “There was a stone in there and you could just see that the stonecutter had a really bad day. He was just desperate to get that stone done and it was all different planes! I’m conscious that the traces we leave will be read in a couple of hundred years.”
Mason’s mark
The medieval tradition of the mason’s mark still exists but Julia does not use one. She is content with the privilege of working on the historical fabric and adds, with a glint in her eye, that, “I will leave people to wonder in the future.”
I ask if stone work has lost something from older times and if modern tools have led to a dilution of the craft. Reflecting, Julia responds that there have been losses and gains. Stonemasonry has never been a static craft. Craftspeople have always used the newest available technologies. She uses the example of Fota House in Cork where she discovered decorative recesses set in a groove in the window surrounds. They had obviously been made by some form of mechanised solution designed by innovative craftspeople in the past.
This understanding, if we lose that, we are losing a lot more than just a fancy addition to our society
Julia sees nothing inherently wrong with using modern tools like grinders or lasers but sounds a warning about the importance of physical engagement with your material. She commented that, “If you lose that and you put everything into a machine and it comes out finished, a very essential part of the trade is lost… Really engaging with the materials, seeing the flaws, seeing the veins of the stone, experiencing the different hardnesses in a stone… this understanding, if we lose that, we are losing a lot more than just a fancy addition to our society. It is a substantial and essential piece of being human.”
She develops this theme as we discuss modern architecture, remarking that its functionality can make it difficult to connect with at a human level. Glass, steel and concrete are more impersonal than traditional materials but she acknowledges that each era has its own stand-out buildings. She is also pragmatic about the need for modular building, reasoning that the large-scale sociological imperative to provide homes for people will have to take precedence over creating buildings for posterity.
When asked if there is any project she would like to work on, she reveals her greatest ambition is to work on a cantilevered Renaissance spiral staircase. She is fascinated by the engineering skills that these builders showed. They set stairs with a slight tilt to the middle to allow for the fact that, as the fresh masonry settled, the stairs would correct itself and end up perfectly level. She would love to peep back in time and see those projects in action. Julia feels the symbiotic relationship craftspeople had with their materials and the innate depth of understanding of the qualities of those materials has been diluted in modern times.
She would like to see the trades have a more central role in Ireland. In Germany, the guilds have an important voice in construction and drive training and standards in the industry. There is work needed to foreground traditional crafts and to provide supports to make these trades a sustainable career for young people. For anyone interested in taking up stone cutting, Julia advises that there is an excellent apprenticeship programme in Tralee, which equips its students with the skills needed as a mason or stone cutter.
In 2017, Julia joined with fellow German stonemason, Christian Helling, to establish a stone conservation company, Gebel-Helling Conservation Ltd. The business has thrived and they have been involved in some fascinating, high-profile restoration projects such as St Patrick’s Bridge and Holy Trinity Church in Cork, Belvelly Castle and the Porter’s Lodge at Castleboro Estate. Their main business is stone conservation and repair but they also do sculptural work and monumental repair. Julia was recently commissioned to make plinths for medieval sculptures for an Antrim museum.
Before we leave the site, I ask if there is anything else Julia might have done in another life? She laughs and spontaneously responds, “I think I have been a stone mason in all my lives! I think I’ve got to come back here yet again!”
This article forms part of a joint project between Cashel Arts Festival and Clonmel Applefest and is included in the publication Artisans of Cashel.
Cashel Arts Festival is a four-day festival set in the town of Cashel in Co Tipperary, offering a wide variety of music, dance, visual arts, film, theatre, workshops, family events and literature events every September. See full details on www.cashelartsfest.com
Artisans of Cashel is on sale in the Heritage Centre in Cashel. Artisans of Clonmel was launched as the opening event of Clonmel Applefest, a four-day festival every September celebrating food, heritage and nature. More information on www.clonmelapplefest.ie
Books are on sale in Clonmel at Chou Cottage and at the Bookmarket.
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