Connemara dry stone walls are built by carefully selecting stones that will balance and sit into the wall. No mortar or cement is used in their construction. Field or enclosures needing a stone wall are generally cleared of surface stone and rocks that are then used in the construction of the dry stone walls. This serves the dual purpose of making the land more usable and providing free materials for boundary walls. The Ceide Fields in Mayo show how the construction of dry stone walls has changed little in over 5000 years. Dry stone walls are generally quite low and require regular maintenance to replace fallen stones. In some places gates are not made in the walls and an access is made in a wall when needed and then rebuilt. Most traditional dry stone walls to not have a cap layer (the top layer). Cap layers tend to stabilise the wall. The walls are constructed with little or no foundation. The largest stones are placed at the bottom and increasingly smaller, carefully selected stones are added as the wall rises in height. Stones are not worked to ensure the best fit. Stones are however often split where a specific shape stone is needed. In the time of the Famine (1845 to 1847) building walls was used as a means of providing income to starving families. These walls can be up to 35 km in length and often serve no purpose as a boundary for fields or farms.
