Stonemasons

Eve222

Does anyone know if there are records anywhere for stonemasons in Co Limerick and Co Cork in the 1800's. Thanks, Eve

Ponster

Do you mean the Freemasons ?

edit : Or do you mean professional records of some sort for a chap who was a stonemason ?

Eve222

Hi Ponster, Yes, men who worked as stonemasons.

pedroeibar1

I’ve never researched them specifically, but have come across them in other work. You would need a lot of luck to pin one down.…. If the stonemason was ‘important’ and qualified, rather than a local guy who was good at stonework, he might have a building business (or be a monumental mason (gravestones, etc) and be registered in a trade directory, eg Ferrar's Limerick Directory 1769 has a few listed ( and see link below). Many were semi-itinerant, i.e. they would travel for work if none was available locally. For example JK Bracken (one of the GAA founders) in Templemore was a mason-cum-builder and I think his grandfather was a Dublin mason who moved to Tipp to work on Templemore Abbey and settled there. I did some research on a Killarney, Co. Kerry building (works 1849 / 1850) and one of the Limerick papers was advertising for qualified stonemasons, offering a weekly wage of 15 shillings to work on it. That was rather a lot; at that time a casual labourer would be lucky to earn about 5 shillings a week.

Many rural people could do stonework to an acceptable level and I’ve come across a small-farmer Kerry family that went to Boston just after the Famine and within a year or so were listed on various docs as ‘marble worker’ and ‘marble cutter’. It was a ‘portable’ craft.

Limerick City Trades Register includes a mason directory HERE

Eve222

Thank you Pedro. I went through the directories, but no luck there. It is a family of stonemasons I want to find out more about. One I know was a master stonemason, his father and some of his brothers were stonemasons. Also three of his sons were stonemasons. It would be interesting if it were possible to find out what work they did and where.

KildareFan

Not sure if this is any help - but Seamus Murphy, stone mason wrote his book "Stone Mad" in 1950:
In 1950, Seamus published 'Stone Mad', his famous book celebrating the work of the Stonies whose craft had begun to die out in the 1940s. It has been described as a classic and is a tribute to the work of innumerable anonymous craftsmen in a tradition that had continued from medieval times.
http://www.seamusmurphysculptor.com/

Eve222

Thank you KildareFan. I'm going to buy the book, it will be interesting to know more about stonework. Also from the link you gave me I see that Seamus Murphy was born not to far from the family I'm talking about.