Ireland’s Architectural Heritage

There is no better way for a visitor to explore Ireland’s rich and varied architectural heritage than to base yourself in one of The Hidden Ireland’s network of historic private houses. This is a relaxing and exciting way to explore our island and helps to bring its unique building styles and its turbulent history into clearer focus.

Most visitors catch tantalising glimpses of romantic-looking buildings from Ireland’s past while driving through the countryside. Frequently ruinous and often fragmentary, these buildings will all repay a more thorough investigation.

Ireland’s historic buildings span more than six millennia.

The Neolithic Period

From the Neolithic period (3,700-2,000 B.C.) are the dolmens of Proleek (County Louth) and Kilclooney (County Donegal) and many others scattered throughout the country. Among the Neolithic passage graves are Knowth, Dowth and Newgrange (c. 2,500 BC) in the Boyne valley,the less well-known but no less interesting Loughcrew (County Meath), and a further group at Carrowkeel and Carrowmore (in Counties Roscommon and Sligo).

There are also innumerable ring forts, consisting of a number of stone (or stone and clay) walls, usually laid out in a series of concentric circles. Staigue Fort (County Kerry) and Dun Aengus on Inis Mór (the largest Aran island off the coast of County Galway) are among the largest and finest examples and come wonderfully to life in the slanting evening light. The defensive purpose of Dun Aengus is obvious as it is even equipped with chevaux-de-frise, a series of large projecting stone spikes, set into fissures in the surrounding rock as an added deterrent to attackers.

There are an enormous number of smaller examples, between 30 and 40 thousand of them, scattered throughout every parish in the country. Indeed in certain areas it can seem as if there is one – and sometimes several - every field. These were early agricultural homesteads, built by a warrior race as a refuge for family and livestock and their construction continued through several millennia, virtually unchanged.

The Monastic Period

Although rather less widespread than ring forts, early Christian remains are relatively common. Christianity reached Ireland towards the middle of the 5th century but it is unlikely that the country was completely converted until the number of monastic settlements ‘mushroomed’ in the following century.

Monastic settlements were based around a particular saint, who selected a site, gathered a group of adherents about him and built his church and attendant buildings within a ring fort or cashel. Some saints adopted a more hermit-like approach and built in remote areas; the centres of bogs, amidst the mountains or, particularly, on islands, and these sites are among the best preserved today, largely due to their remoteness and inaccessibility.

There was a greater concentration of monastic settlements along the major trade routes and rivers, such as the flood plain of the River Shannon and its lakes, and also in costal regions. Clonmacnoise (County Offaly) is perhaps the most important and best known, but other major sites include Inismurray (on an island off the coast of County Sligo), Glendalough (in the remote  mountains of County Wicklow), and Skellig Michael, or the Great Skellig, a steep, rocky island, seven miles off the County Kerry coast.

In addition to the principal buildings, sites often included a distinctively Irish Round Tower and, on occasions, a High Cross decorated with carved figures and religious scenes, according to Irish Art & Architecture (Thames & Hudson 1978), ‘probably the best known symbol of early Christianity in Ireland’.

Church construction gradually developed into the Irish Romanesque, probably around the year 1000. Doors and windows were given round heads, interiors were no longer just a simple rectangular room, while the treatment of the west door became increasingly important and was often carved with elaborate Romanesque detail. Major examples of this style include Cormac’s Chapel on the Rock of Cashel (County Tipperary), Clonfert Cathedral (County Galway), and Killeshin (County Laois). On occasions, churches were even roofed with a stone vault, but this is comparatively rare.  

The Norman Invasion

The Normans invaded Ireland late in the 12th century, quickly spreading out from their first landfall on the County Wexford coast.

As in other countries, their military machine used castles as secure bases from which they subjugated and controlled conquered territory. Their first castles were timber baileys, built on a raised mound or mote, but these were highly vulnerable to fire, so subsequent castles were constructed of stone, as at Trim, (County Meath), Ferns (County Wexford), Carrigfergus (County Antrim) and just west of the Shannon at Roscommon.

The Normans also brought religious orders like the Augustinians and Cistercians, who introduced the European monastic layout: a great cruciform church with pointed windows and a complex plan of nave, aisles, transepts and choir, with a tower rising over the crossing, the point at which the nave intersects with the transepts. On their southern side most churches were connected to a sacristy, a chapter-house and the monks’ dormitory and refectory, to form a hollow square known as the cloisters. The abbeys of Duiske (Graignamanagh, County Kilkenny) and Melifont (County Louth) are just two fine examples, as are cathedrals such as St. Patrick’s (Dublin) and St. Canice’s (Kilkenny).

The Middle Ages

The original Norman invasion did not run according to plan and by the beginning of the 14th century the colony was in trouble. Many settlers, such as the de Burgos (Burkes or Bourkes) in Connacht and the FitzGeralds in Kildare and Limerick had “gone native” – giving rise to the saying ‘more Irish than the Irish’. The Black Death, a form of bubonic plague which devastated Europe’s population in a manner comparable with today’s Aids epidemic in Equatorial Africa, was an even more serious blow. Whole communities, particularly urban and religious communities, were annihilated, in both England and Ireland.

The Normans, who by now had fully integrated with the native population of England and had begun to think of themselves as English, lacked the human resources to maintain everything they had conquered. Indeed for a great deal of this period their writ was reduced to the area within ‘the Pale,’ an area stretching for about fifty miles north and south of Dublin, and for up to thirty miles inland, fenced off by a ditch or palisade, in addition to the walled cities along the east and south coasts.

Many monasteries were virtually wiped out by the Black Death and closed orders had gone into serious decline. This provided a fruitful field for the arrival of the mendicant friars, particularly Franciscans and Dominicans, who set up religious houses, both close to towns and cities and in country areas (particularly in Connacht) which had been less affected by the plague. Their arrival coincided with a period of strong Gaelic resurgence, so a substantial majority of friaries were founded by Gaelic or Hibernicised Norman families as a result.

Certain friars were Observant (had gone back to basics and were observing their ‘rule’ in its purest original form) while others were Conventual (following rules that had been developed gradually over the years), and these differences were reflected in the churches they built. All friary churches were narrow, but Observant foundations were expected to have plain, almost pristine buildings without towers and with little decoration. Their cloisters were smaller, often forming the lower floor of the adjoining buildings on three sides (with the fourth side directly abutting the wall of the church).

Friary rules were relaxed during the 15th century and many tall elegant towers were added to existing friaries as a result. At the same time a number of Cistercian foundations such as Holycross (County Tipperary) and Jerpoint (County Kilkenny) were rebuilt. Examples of friaries include Rosserrily (County Galway, an Observant foundation), Burrishoole (County Mayo), and Timoleague (County Cork).

In addition to cities like Dublin, Waterford and Kilkenny. many towns such as Roscrea (in County Tipperary) and Drogheda (in County Louth) were fortified in mediaeval times. This gave them the outward appearance of castles, though in the main their walls have long disappeared. In fact the vast majority of so-called ‘castles’ seen from the road are actually tower houses, purpose built as easily-defensible private dwellings.  

Just as the Normans’ wooden castles gave way to stone, the dwellings of smaller landowners followed suit, particularly after the middle of the 15th century. Tower houses were essentially vertical residences, with one or more rooms on each floor and the principal room (usually with the best fireplace and largest windows) on the topmost floor, reached either by a spiral staircase, by a mural staircase built within the walls, or by some combination of the two. There are usually four or five floors, with at least one floor supported on a stone vault as a protection against fire.

Most tower houses are rectangular in plan, with the entrance on a short side, the staircase to the left, the guardroom on the right and the hall straight ahead (usually with a murder-hole above the connecting passage to allow the defendants attack an unwelcome guest from above). Decoration is generally restricted to the chimneypieces and windows (in particular to those of the upper storeys) while the wall supports a self-draining wall-walk at the eaves level, with the parapet and battlements resting on top. Typical examples are Clara (County Kilkenny), Aughanure (County Galway) and Kilcash (County Tipperary).

Tower houses often had an attached hall for entertaining, usually a later addition. Originally of wood, these were subsequently built of stone (see Coolhull, County Wexford) though their construction was seldom as robust as the masonry of the original tower, with the result that few have survived. Locations of long-gone halls can often be traced by examining the external masonry.  There are also a small number of cylindrical tower houses, mainly on the borders of Tipperary and Kilkenny, and at the edge of the Burren in County Clare.

Towers were surrounded by a bawn, an enclosure intended for the protection of livestock. These vary considerably in size, from a small forecourt to a large enclosure of several acres, and can be rectangular, polygonal or irregular in plan (See Aughanure and Dunguaire, County Galway). Some bawns (such as Clonony, County Offaly) have a fortified gate-house and angle turrets.  

In a small number of instances the basic tower house design has been developed to form larger, more elaborate castles such as Blarney (County Cork) and Bunratty (County Clare), both very well known, and Dunsoghley (County Dublin), the only Irish castle known to retain its original mediaeval roof.

Tower houses were really the robust precursors of the country house. Indeed, in several instances in the late 18th century, occupants moved directly from a tower house to a newly-built regular classical Georgian house, just across the fields. Today this seems almost surreal, like a short journey in a time machine, bridging the gap between the Dark Ages and the Age of Enlightenment in the course of a short walk.

In other cases, where the family were unwilling to abandon their homes, castles were adapted and included into later houses. Thus at Ballymore (near Lawrencetown in County Galway) a delicate bow-fronted Regency house was tacked onto the front of a massive late tower house, which rises ominously above it from behind, while Leap (in County Tipperary, and reputedly the most haunted house in Ireland) was given a Palladian layout with matching battlemented wings and a tripartite Batty Langley door-case in the Gothick style.

The Seventeenth Century

It has often been assumed that due to three major periods of war, at least two major redistributions of land ownership and the suppression of the Catholic Church, few major building projects were undertaken during the 17th century - but in fact it was a period of considerable architectural change and innovation.

On the domestic front, tower houses were still being built until well into the 1680s but there was already evidence of a new style, with a wide variety of ‘strong houses’ built before the country was disrupted by the rebellion of 1641 (and in some cases a great deal earlier.)

Typical strong houses can be seen at Burntcourt (County Tipperary) Coppinger’s Court, Mount Long and Monkstown (all in County Cork) and in County Roscommon near the town of Athleague. Their plans were usually in the shape of the letters T, H, C, E or Z, and the houses themselves were still easily defensible from armed attack, though they were not immune from artillery.

Similar but larger (and in some cases earlier) houses were built by the great ‘old-English’ (Hiberno-Norman) landowners, such as the Earls of Ormond at Carrick-on-Suir (County Tipperary) and of Clanricarde at Portumna (County Galway) and by Archbishop Loftus at Rathfarnham, though these houses owed a great deal to Elizabethan and Jacobean examples which their owners had seen while at court in England.

The decline in ecclesiastical patronage was partly offset by the requirements of new settlers and the civil administration, particularly after the wholesale restructuring of land ownership in the wake of the Cromwellian confiscations and Restoration of King Charles II. The Government built a number of fortifications such as the splendid Vaubanesque Charles Fort, (near Kinsale in County Cork) to protect shipping and harbours from attack, while the magnificent Royal Hospital at Kilmainham on the edge of Dublin, based on Louis XIV’s Invalides,  provided a home for retired soldiers, described in one document as ‘old and unserviceable.’

This period of innovation gave rise to some interesting anomalies on the country house scene perhaps best illustrated by three very different houses in County Galway.

Portumna Castle, completed in 1618, was an Irish version of Jacobean houses like Blickling. It was still defensible, just, but its formal courtyards and vast mullioned windows indicate the expectation of more settled times. Nearby Derryhivenny is a typical tower-house, closely following a centuries-old design but actually built in 1647 (and clearly still with defence in mind). Just down the road is Eyrecourt, built shortly after 1660: a symmetrical, classical house in the latest ‘Artisan-mannerist’ style, with widely projecting eaves, a profusion of dormer windows, a belvedere, a modern plan and an exceptionally rich interior.

Less than five miles and forty five years separate these three houses yet it is difficult to imagine a greater difference in atmosphere and style.

The Georgian Period

After 1700 a new era of stability gave renewed confidence to the administration and to landowners. This was the period of our finest country houses and our grandest cities and towns, and throughout the 18th century, native artisans and craftsmen gave an essentially Irish flavour to the classical Georgian style.

In the country, and following the example of Castletown (County Kildare), houses such as Carton (County Kildare) Powerscourt and Russborough (both County Wicklow) and, later in the century, Castletown Cox (County Kilkenny), Kilshanning (County Cork) and Castlecoole (County Fermanagh) all had formal facades and regular, convenient plans in the Palladian manner.

Some houses (such as Bellamont, County Cavan) were designed with four regular fronts, while others had rectangular wings connected to the main building by curved quadrants or colonnades. Houses were usually rectangular, though often relieved with symmetrical bows or canted bays (as at Ballyhaise, County Cavan). Internally, they were elegantly and elaborately fitted-up and furnished in the latest taste with finely carved marble chimneypieces, mahogany doors, robust classical joinery and sumptuous decorative plasterwork.

Their owners had equally splendid town houses in the fashionable Dublin squares for use when Parliament was in session. These were hidden behind a simple façade in a regular brick terrace.

The 18th century was also the era of Dublin’s great public buildings by Ireland’s most famous architects: the Parliament House, now the Bank of Ireland, the world’s first purpose built two-tier assembly, Trinity College with its great library and noble forecourt, the Custom House, Four Courts and Royal Exchange, several of hospitals, a number of schools and charitable foundations, and a plethora of churches and bridges.

This building frenzy was emulated by many provincial towns and cities, though the scale was vastly reduced.
 

After 1800

A new century brought the Act of Union. Now Ireland was ruled from London and lost control of her own destiny. Stripped of its parliament, Dublin declined, though many rural cities and towns continued to flourish as centres of trade, and as ports for the export of Irish produce. In the capital, scaled-down suburban versions of Dublin’s Georgian terraces were home to an emerging middle class, usually engaged in the professions or in trade, while the civil administration built grandiose courthouses and the Protestant Church of Ireland built churches and rectories on a widespread scale.

In Dublin, artisans and manual workers were gradually housed in the great city-centre houses, which had been left vacant when their owners had decamped to Parliament in London. These were subdivided between multiple tenants with whole families often packed into a single grand room. Elsewhere, workers were housed in small, specially constructed terraces on the outskirts of towns and cities.

In the country, many landowners had amassed large estates and their grandiose houses were continually re-built, re-fashioned and modernised in the latest style. Now Gothic was the prevailing taste. This was a forgiving style, since it allowed an owner the cheaper option of Gothicising his original  house, and possibly making some further additions, as happened at Birr (County Offaly), Castle Bernard (County Cork), Killua and Tullynally (both in County Westmeath).  Some owners preferred to start afresh, as happened at Charleville (County Offaly), while others, such as the Perceval family of Temple House (County Sligo) found they were more comfortable with an adaptation of the familiar classical style.

During this period estates were enclosed with high walls; entrance gates, lodges and stables were built, and whole villages were remodelled to reflect the landlord’s standing and taste.

In the middle of the century, total reliance on a single staple, the potato, eventually brought about the Great Famine of the 1840s. The resultant starvation brought death and emigration, and decimated the rural populace. Many landowners were ruined and estates with numerous very small holdings (particularly where tenancies were regularly subdivided between a tenant’s children) rapidly became overburdened with debt.

Maintenance levels were reduced, houses and outbuildings fell into disrepair and no new building work was commenced, other than on projects specifically intended to create employment.

The Famine was followed by the Land War, which began as a low key request for fair rent and fixed tenancies but rapidly became an outright demand for land ownership. Eventually, when agrarian outrages got too far out of hand, the government introduced a succession of Land Acts, where owners could sell to their tenants, with the cost of purchase underwritten by the state.

For the landowner, these Land Acts often brought a false sense of prosperity, as tenanted land was sold on generous terms. Many houses were remodelled or, in some cases, completely rebuilt with this new found wealth.

Country Houses in the Twentieth Century

But this situation could not last and unless the capital was wisely invested it was rapidly frittered away. World War I took its toll of the owning families and a number of country houses were burnt in the War of Independence and ensuing Civil War.

After independence, many more were left landless and roofless by the regressive legislation of the new state. Their gaunt ruins are often visible from the road side, standing forlornly in their blighted demesnes. Only in the last twenty years have country houses received their due recognition as the manifestation (and the repository) of Ireland’s architectural and artistic excellence, especially that of the 18th century.

In cities and towns the unrest of Independence and the world recession took their toll on Ireland’s economy. There were few new buildings of merit; indeed there was little new building at all, apart from housing developments in Dublin and the larger cities, since the population was still largely rural based and deeply rooted in agricultural and countryside traditions.

The economic prosperity of the 1960s, largely brought about by industrialisation, gave our urban environment a new impetus with the completion of the first major new buildings by Irish architects in several generations. Regrettably, the prevailing spirit of the age demanded ‘new buildings for old’ and many important urban buildings were destroyed at this time. To make matters worse, while our modern buildings were often very fine, they did not always attempt to blend in with the streetscape, as at the time this was not considered to be good architectural practice.

Gradually, in the 1970s and 80s we slowly began to realise that we actually had a built heritage to be proud of. Sadly at first we did not understand this fully, so demolition and redevelopment were too frequently our preferred options, conservation knowledge being still in its infancy. And money was tight, so even if the merits of a building were recognised and understood, it was not always feasible to give it a new lease of life.

Curiously, the Celtic Tiger, the boom economy at the turn of the century which should have brought so many benefits, did not help much either, since many buildings were irrevocably damaged by insensitive ‘restoration’ and embellishment. Happily, the recent Protected Structures legislation should rectify this problem, once it is fully implemented, so the future now looks rosy. 

Visitors who are interested in Ireland’s architecture, particularly those who want to experience life in a historic Irish house, should spend a few days in one of Hidden Ireland splendid country houses.  It’s a wonderful experience.