Mr. Mark McSherry:

Bricklaying is not just all about bricklaying. You could be in footings up to your knees in water one day, and muck and glar and in the winter your hands are freezing and all that. It is not only about being up on scaffolding on a house doing a gable and all that. On top of that you also have to labour for yourself. You have to carry your muck to your muck boards and fill your muck boards, go get your blocks and your bricks and sort yourself out and then go and start building. There was a young lad with me not long ago and he did not like doing that part of the job. All he wanted to do was just lay the blocks and it was a handy number. He actually left because of that. It is hard work. When you see the building at the end of it all you can say, "I did that and it will not blow over in the wind".