Masonry
The stones are cut on every side and end so as to fit perfectly together. They exhibit smoothly finished outside facings that follow the slant of the wall.
The edifice is usually thought to have been built without mortar, but there is evidence that even if mortar "was never visible in the wall facings it was used as a structural medium for the interior of the wall at least." A thin layer of lime mortar is used to bond the stones together and to fill in small hollows in the inner faces.
Read more about this topic: Gallarus Oratory
Famous quotes containing the word masonry:
“I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and copestones for the masonry of today. This is the way to learn grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)