The evolution of the Irish tower-house as a domestic
space
R
ORY SHERLOCK*
Department of Archaeology, School of Geography and Archaeology,
National University of Ireland, Galway
[Accepted 10 May 2010. Published 13 December 2010]
The Irish tower-house could be portrayed as the Irish castle
par excellence and it is
thought that over 3,000 examples were built in the Irish landscape between
AD 1400
and 1650. In some parts of the countryside, particularly in areas of good agricultural
land in Munster and south Leinster, the density of tower-house distribution is quite
remarkable and in these areas the importance of the tower-house as an artefact of late
medieval life in Ireland is readily apparent. Their importance lies not only in their
numbers however, but is rooted more signifi cantly in the fact that tower-houses were
built by people from a broad social spectrum and from all cultural backgrounds.
This paper will explore the role and evolution of the Irish tower-house as a domestic
space during this period and, in particular, will present a classifi cation of Irish towerhouses
on the basis of their halls and the relationships between these spaces and the
principal vaults and private apartments with the buildings.
Written accounts of visits to Irish castles in the late medieval period are, perhaps,
the most valuable form of documentary evidence available for the study of the social
environment of the Irish tower-house and as a result, much discussion on the topic to
date has been largely, if not exclusively, based upon them. These sources include the
writings of a number of visitors to Ireland and, while the castles described by such
visitors are not named, it may be suggested, on the basis of the weight of numbers or
on the strength of the particular text itself, that at least some of these castles were, in
fact, tower-houses. In a much-quoted text, Luke Gernon describes the hospitality he
enjoyed on a visit to an Irish castle in
c. 1620 as follows:1
We are come to the castle already. The castles are built very strong and w
th
narow stayres, for security. The hall is the uppermost room, let us go up, you
shall not come downe agayne till tomorrow. Take no care of yo
r horses, they
shall be sessed among the tenants. The lady of the house meets you w
th her
trayne. I have instructed you before how to accost them. Salutations paste,
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy
Vol. 111C, 115–140 © 2010 Royal Irish Academy
Abstract
* doi: 10.3318/PRIAC.2010.111.115
1
Quoted in C.L. Falkiner, Illustrations of Irish history and topography (London, 1904),
360–1. The displayed text has not been corrected and any spelling differences will not be
denoted by
sic. in this or in subsequent quotations in this paper.
Historical
background
Rory Sherlock
116
you shall be presented w
th all the drinkes in the house, fi rst the ordinary
beere, then aquavitae, then sacke, then olde-ale, the lady tastes it, you must
not refuse it. The fyre is prepared in the middle of the hall, where you may
sollace yo
r self till supper time, you shall not want sacke and tobacco. By
this time the table is spread and plentifully furnished w
th a variety of meates,
but ill cooked and w
th out sauce ... They feast together with great iollyty and
healths around; towards the middle of supper, the harper beginns to tune and
singeth Irish rymes of auncient making. If he be a good rymer, he will make
one song to the present occasion. Supper being ended, it is at your liberty to
sitt up, or to depart to yo
r lodgeing, you shall have company in both kind.
When you come to yo
r chamber, do not expect canopy and curtaynes. It is
very well if your bedd content you, and if the company be greate, you may
happen to be bodkin in the middle. In the morning there will be brought unto
you a cupp of aquavitae. …. Breakfast is but the repetitions of supper. When
you are disposing of yourself to depart, they call for a Dogh a dores, that is,
to drink at the doore, there you are presented agayne w
th all the drinkes in the
house, as at yor fi rst entrance. Smacke them over, and lett us departe.
Gernon clearly states that the hall is the uppermost room in the building, a distinctive
characteristic of many Irish tower-houses, and though he focuses his comments
largely upon the food and drink consumed on his visit, he does also suggest that the
bedchamber in which he was accommodated was somewhat sparsely furnished. In
contrast to Gernon’s lively depiction of Irish castle life, le Gouz, writing in 1644,
presents a starker image of the subject:
2
The castles or houses of the nobility consist of four walls extremely high,
thatched with straw; but to tell the truth they are nothing but square towers
without windows, or at least having such small apertures as to give no more
light than there is in a prison. They have little furniture, and cover their
rooms with rushes, of which they make their beds in summer, and of straw in
winter. They put the rushes a foot deep on their fl oors, and on their windows,
and many of them ornament the ceilings with branches.
Le Gouz’s description is quite important in that it may, in describing a poorly furnished
castle, depict life in an Irish tower-house of lesser status than that visited by
Gernon. In further contrast to Gernon’s account, Stanihurst, writing in 1584, states
that the Irish held:
3
… castles ‘strongly constructed and fortifi ed with masses of stone.’ Adjoining
the castles were: ‘… reasonably big and spacious palaces made from white
clay and mud. They are not roofed with quarried slabs or slates but with
2
Quoted in T.C. Croker, The tour of the French traveler M. de la Boullaye le Gouz in Ireland,
A
.D. 1644
(London, 1837), 40–1.
3
Quoted in Colm Lennon, Richard Stanihurst: The Dubliner 1547–1618 (Dublin, 1981), 91.
The evolution of the Irish tower-house as a domestic space
117
thatch. [There] they hold their banquets but they prefer to sleep in the castle
rather than the palace because their enemies can easily apply torches to the
roofs which catch fi re rapidly if there is but the slightest breeze’.
This is a very important piece of descriptive writing from late medieval Ireland,
as it directly contradicts Gernon’s statement that the hall was the topmost room in
the tower. In the castle visited by Stanihurst, the hall is clearly found in a separate
‘soft’ building and the masonry tower is reserved for more private functions.
Supporting evidence for Stanihurst’s description is found in the writings of Camden,
who states:
4
… and some other castles of less note which like those in other parts
of Ireland are no more than towers, with narrow loop-holes rather than
windows; to which adjoins a hall made of turf, and roofed over with thatch,
and a large yard fenced quite round with a ditch and hedge to defend their
cattle from thieves …
The four accounts reproduced above serve to indicate clearly how the social environments
of various tower-houses may have differed considerably from each other
and suggest that the similarities evident in tower-house architecture today should not
be allowed to obscure a more nuanced picture. Given that Gernon is writing about
a hall within a tower 30 to 40 years
after Stanihurst described the hall as a separate
building, the proposal that halls became separate structures from tower-houses as the
trend towards the privatisation of space developed in late medieval Ireland cannot
be applied uniformly to all sites and it is likely that practices considered archaic in
one household or region were still part of daily life in others. The infl uence of social
status in promoting or retarding social change should be considered, as it appears
somewhat unlikely that all tower-house-based households, representing a number
of societal levels, would move in unison as social change developed in the culture
of the time. It is likely that examples of tower-houses which had halls within them,
in the style of Gernon’s castle, and which had halls alongside them, in the style of
that described by Stanihurst, existed side-by-side in late medieval Ireland and so we
must explore the architecture of the Irish tower-house more closely in an attempt to
understand the social implications of these contrasting arrangements.
The physical form of the Irish tower-house has provided the basis for much
research in recent decades and the origins of this line of inquiry may be traced back
to the work of notable antiquarians such as T.J. Westropp, who published a detailed
study of tower-houses in Clare
5 in this journal in 1899. The form of the Irish tower-
house can vary considerably and one of the principal diffi culties in fully understanding
tower-house architecture in a broad sense lies in the fact that variations in
physical form between certain tower-houses may, in any given case, be ascribed
4
Quoted in M.W. Thompson, The decline of the castle (Cambridge, 1987), 24.
5
T.J. Westropp, ‘Notes on the lesser castles or “peel towers” of the County Clare’, Proceedings
of the Royal Irish Academy
21 (1899), 348–65.
Rory Sherlock
118
to differences in regional styles, in chronological contexts or, indeed, in the social
status and aspirations of the owners. It appears that tower-houses were generally
built under the supervision of experienced masons and carpenters, perhaps without
recourse to detailed plans or specifi cations, though an intriguing document within
the Ormond deeds does suggest that pre-construction agreements were, at least
occasionally, written down. This is an order and award dated 15 April 1547, and an
extract from the calendared version states:
6
Richard is hereby awarded a castle to be built on the land of Bretasse, ‘the
same castell to be of thre loftes besides the rofe, and the same substancially
builded; the fi rst loft to be with a vault and to be xiiii fote hy, and the other ii
lofts to be every of them x fote hy; and the rofe to be substancially covered
with slate and the gutters with gutterstone well embatelde; and to be furnisshed
with a chymney in both of the ii over loftes and a substanciall persoum (?)
with drawghtes accordinge; the same castell to have a goode substanciall
berbikan of stone as is at Pollywherie
7, and to the neither gate of the castell
to have a goode grate of iron; and the said castell to be substancially buylded
with goode lyme and stone, the walls to be vi fote thick undre the vault and
iiii fote above, and furnisshed with dores and wyndowes and all other things
necessarie to a castell, as shalbe thought goode by the iudgement of Mr.
Derby Ryan and the tresoror of Lismore, calling to them one mason and one
carpenter’.
Such documentary references to castle construction are of interest when the priorities
of the builders are evident in the constructional specifi cations. In the case of the
castle at Bretasse, the necessity of having a vault over the ground-fl oor chamber, fi replaces
in the two upper chambers and a good gated bawn is evident from their being
specifi cally referred to, while one must assume that other features, such as latrines,
storage alcoves and the stair, were so commonplace and self-evident that specifi c
reference to them was unnecessary.
Given that the design priorities of tower-house builders cannot be fully understood
through rare documentary sources, such as visitors’ accounts and construction agreements,
we must seek to fi nd evidence for such priorities in tower-house architecture.
Most Irish tower-houses, it may be argued, were essentially physical frameworks
designed to accommodate a hall and a number of ‘private’ chambers in a single
block. This arrangement was supported by a series of service areas located within
the tower or within the bawn around it, though excavated evidence for structures in
6
Edmund Curtis (ed.), Calendar of Ormond deeds, volume 5: 1547–1584 (Dublin, 1941),
22–3.
7
Probably Poulakerry Castle, near Kilsheelan (RMP No. TS084:019---). The castle of
‘Bretasse’ has not been identifi ed, but may once have existed, or may have been proposed but
never built, in the townland of Brittas located just 7km from Poulakerry.
The hall in the Irish
tower-house
The evolution of the Irish tower-house as a domestic space
119
the vicinity of tower-houses has been sought and found more commonly in Scotland
8
than in Ireland. The hall may be understood to be at the heart of most Irish towerhouses
and so it must lie at the centre of our investigations. It is often argued that
Irish and Scottish tower-houses developed from earlier hall-houses
9 and while the
smallest tower-houses, and the latest examples may not have had halls within them,
the vast majority of tower-houses appear to have had an identifi able hall-like space at
their core. To understand how the Irish tower-house functioned as a social environment,
a study of 120 well-preserved tower-houses was undertaken by the author
10 and
this work provides the basis for the analysis to follow. The surveyed tower-houses
were categorised using a fi ve-part classifi cation system based upon the location of
the hall, the presence and location of principal vaults and the location of the principal
private apartment within the building. This strategy was generally successful despite
the fact that fourteen of the surveyed buildings could not be readily assigned to one
of the fi ve subgroups. An image (Fig. 1) which shows one building from each of the
fi ve subgroups in section is quite useful in this discussion, in that comparisons may
easily be made between the different examples, and the infl uence which vault location
has upon hall location may be more readily understood.
To allow the development of the tower-house hall over time to be considered,
each of the tower-houses examined were simply classifi ed, where possible,
as either ‘early’ or ‘late’ examples on the basis of their architectural form. This
simple system, here taken to indicate pre-1500 buildings and post-1500 buildings
respectively, was quite useful, though caution must always be observed in this area
due to the diffi culties in dating tower-houses in this way. In summary, tower-houses
which are round in plan, which feature mid-height bartizans and/or original gun
loops, which lack a principal vault, which have an indirect entry route (i.e. where
outer and inner entrance lobbies are found) or which have a reliable historical or
dendrochronological dating evidence were assigned to the post-1500 category,
while tower-houses which have a principal vault, which have primary and secondary
stairways and which lack ostensibly ‘late’ features were assigned to the pre-
1500 group. This system is not entirely satisfactory, but while some authors
11 have
sought to tackle the issue of tower-house chronology on a regional basis in recent
8
G.L. Good and C.J. Tabraham, ‘Excavations at Threave Castle, Galloway, 1974–78’,
Medieval Archaeology
25 (1981), 90–140; G.L. Good and C.J. Tabraham, ‘Excavations at
Smailholm Tower, Roxburghshire’,
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
118 (1988), 231–66; C.J. Tabraham, ‘The Scottish medieval towerhouse as lordly residence
in the light of recent excavation’,
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 118
(1988), 267–76.
9
David Sweetman, The medieval castles of Ireland (Cork, 1999), 104; Stewart Cruden, The
Scottish castle
(Edinburgh, 1963), 99.
10
Rory Sherlock, ‘The social environment of the Irish tower house’, unpublished PhD thesis,
NUI Galway, 2008.
11
A.J. Jordan, ‘Date, chronology and evolution of the County Wexford tower house’, Journal
of the Wexford Historical Society
13 (1990–1), 30–81; M.W. Samuel, ‘A tentative chronology
for tower houses in west Cork’,
Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society
103 (1998), 105–24.
Rory Sherlock
120
years, the shortage of suitable historical documentation and the diffi culties of dating
late medieval buildings on the basis of their architectural details have meant that
the lack of a precise chronological framework continues to hamper research in this
area. However, it is hoped that developments in radiocarbon dating technology will
allow the chronology of the Irish tower-house to be more fully understood in the
near future.
F
IG. 1—Examples of tower-houses in Groups A (Barryscourt, Co. Cork), B (Roodstown, Co. Louth), C (Clara Upper, Co.
Kilkenny), D (Ballynahow) and E (Ballymallis). The red dots indicate the hall location, while the blue dots indicate the
suggested location of the principal private apartment. (A, D and E after Sweetman,
Medieval castles of Ireland, 160, 154
and 170 respectively; B after V.M. Buckley and P.D. Sweetman,
Archaeological survey of County Louth (Dublin, 1991),
338; and C after H.G. Leask,
Irish castles and castellated houses (Dundalk, 1951), 83.)
The evolution of the Irish tower-house as a domestic space
121
Classifi cation
The fi rst subgroup of surveyed tower-houses, Group A, is comprised of buildings,
which have clearly identifi able second-fl oor halls within them (Table 1). This group
includes eleven examples, all of which were considered to be ‘early’ tower-houses
and one of which, Claregalway, Co. Galway, has recently been assigned through
radiocarbon dating to the fi rst half of the fi fteenth century.
12 The buildings within
this group may appear at fi rst to be a disparate selection from the surveyed examples,
given that the large turreted tower-house at Barryscourt, Co. Cork, is grouped with
signifi cantly smaller structures at, for example, Dunlough, in the same county, and
Raruddy, Co. Galway. However, what is important here is not the overall size of the
tower-houses but the fact that each example within Group A has a clearly identifi -
able second-fl oor hall at its heart. In each case, the principal vault within the building
spans the main fi rst-fl oor chamber and the second-fl oor hall, which is carried
on the principal vault, is a strikingly tall space which rises to the underside of the
tower-house roof overhead. The principal stair within each tower-house of the group
terminated at the hall and a secondary stair rose from the level of the hall to give
access to the wall walk and to any lesser chambers at higher levels. The majority of
the halls within the group appear to have been heated using a central hearth, though
the fi re-place in the hall at Bally Beg, Co. Tipperary, may be an original feature.
Each hall in Group A was clearly identifi able by its size, its height and the relatively
high degree of workmanship evident within the space (Pl. I) when each is compared
to other chambers within the same building. Window-seats and window embrasures
with carved rear arches are relatively common, while the windows themselves usually
have multiple opes and ornate heads. Ornate arches and arcades are evident
on the end walls of many of these halls and fi nely carved corbel courses may also
be found. These features serve a practical purpose in that they usually carry mural
chambers or wall walks at higher levels within the buildings, but they also usually
add an aesthetic quality to the halls within which they are featured. The tower-houses
within Group A are found in counties Galway, Limerick, Cork and in mid-Tipperary
(Fig. 2).
The second subgroup of the surveyed tower-houses, Group B, is comprised
of buildings which have a single principal vault within them, but which have at least
two principal fl oor levels above that vault. These buildings differ signifi cantly from
those in Group A, given that a hall in Group B may be found at either of the two
levels over the vault and so can either rest upon the vault
or rise to the underside of
the roof, but cannot do both. In most Group B tower-houses, the hall is found resting
upon the vault and so is spanned by a level ceiling which carries the rooms overhead.
Accordingly, Group B halls are signifi cantly less impressive than Group A halls (or
those of Groups C and D also) and, in fact, in many Group B tower-houses the iden-
12
Two samples of hazel twigs, which had been used in vault construction and were preserved
in situ
, were collected by the author and dated as follows: Sample 1: Lab no. UB-12668. 14C
date: 484±29. Calibrated date (2 sigma):
AD 1408–1449. Sample 2: Lab no.: UB-12669. 14C
date: 494±27. Calibrated date (2 sigma):
AD 1407–1446.
Rory Sherlock
122
T
ABLE 1—Table of sites in Groups A, B, C, D and E.
Group Site County & 6˝ map
Group A Barryscourt Cork (78)
Dunmanus West Cork (139)
Tower-houses with second-fl oor halls that are
carried by the principal vault and which are
open to the underside of the roof.
Dunlough Cork (146)
Cloonboo Galway (69)
Claregalway Galway (70)
Raruddy Galway (105)
Isert Kelly Galway (114)
Pallas Galway (117)
Lisnacullia Limerick (28)
Bally Beg Tipperary (48)
Nodstown Tipperary (52)
Group B Ballynalacken Clare (8)
Tomgraney Clare (28)
Tower-houses with more than one fl oor level
above the principal vault. In the majority
of examples, the hall appears to have rested
upon the vault and the principal private
apartments appear to have been located
immediately above the hall.
Carrigacunna Cork (34)
Castleward Down (31)
Kilclief Down (39)
Newtown Kilkenny (27)
Coolhill Kilkenny (33)
Brownsford Kilkenny (33)
Castlerea Longford (19)
Dunmahon Louth (12)
Roodstown Louth (14)
Fantstown Limerick (48)
Springfi eld Limerick (54)
Donore Meath (41)
Knockagh Tipperary (29)
Ballysheeda Tipperary (51)
Synone Tipperary (53)
Gortmakellis Tipperary (61)
St Johnstown Tipperary (62)
Moorstown Tipperary (76)
Loughlohery Tipperary (82)
Martinstown Westmeath (14)
Artramon Wexford (37)
Rathmacknee Great Wexford (42)
Ballyhack Wexford (44)
Danescastle Wexford (45)
Scar Wexford (46)
Mulrankin Wexford (47)
Kilcloggan Wexford (49)
Group C Gleninagh North Clare (2)
Coolisteige Clare (53)
Tower-houses with a single principal vault that
carries the hall at the topmost-fl oor level (third
or fourth) and where the principal private
apartments are located beneath the vault.
Carrigaphooca Cork (70)
Carrignacurra Cork (81)
Ballinacarriga Cork (108)
Lavallyconor Galway (104)
The evolution of the Irish tower-house as a domestic space
123
Group Site County & 6˝ map
Foulkscourt Kilkenny (8)
Clara Upper Kilkenny (20)
Burnchurch Kilkenny (23)
Rockfl eet Mayo (67)
Coole Offaly (15)
Lackeen Tipperary (4)
Killowney Big Tipperary (21)
Ballintotty Tipperary (21)
Knockane Tipperary (22)
Barrettstown Tipperary (70)
Ballindoney West Tipperary (82)
Group D Newtown Clare (5)
Moyree Clare (18)
Tower-houses which have two principal
vaults. The upper vault carries the hall at the
topmost-fl oor level and the principal private
apartments are located between the upper and
lower vaults.
Obrienscastle Clare (26)
Danganbrack Clare (34)
Castlesaffron Cork (25)
Castlecooke Cork (28)
Cregg North Cork (35)
Conna Cork (46)
Kilmeedy East Cork (48)
Castlerichard Cork (77)
Kilcrea Cork (84)
Aughnanure Galway (54)
Ballinduff Galway (56)
Merlinpark Galway (94)
Cahererillan Galway (113)
Drumharsna Galway (113)
Lydacan Galway (113)
Ardamullivan Galway (128)
Fiddaun Galway (128)
Tubbrid Upper Kilkenny (13)
Currahill Lower Kilkenny (30)
Kilcurl Kilkenny (31)
Corluddy Kilkenny (45)
Beagh Limerick (3)
Rockstown Limerick (22)
Ballyallanin Limerick (29)
Lissamota Limerick (29)
Glenquin Limerick (44)
Loughmoe Tipperary (35)
Ballynahow Tipperary (41)
Rahelty Tipperary (42)
Grallagh Tipperary (53)
Ballynoran Tipperary (84)
Lisfi nny Waterford (28)
T
ABLE 1—(Continued)
Rory Sherlock
124
P
L. I—The upper end of the top-fl oor hall at Isert Kelly (Castlepark townland), Co. Galway. Note the triple arcade carried
on chamfered pillars, the inserted fi re-place (left), the alterations to the fenestration and the crude horizontal beam rebate
which truncates the arcade pillars and which carried an inserted fl oor (scale = 2m).
Group Site County & 6˝ map
Group E Togher Cork (93)
Castlederry Cork (109)
Unvaulted tower-houses. In these buildings,
the distinction between the hall and the
principal private apartments can, at times, be
diffi cult to establish.
Ballinoroher Cork (122)
Castledoe Donegal (26)
Phoenix Park Dublin (18)
Rathmichael Dublin (26)
Derryhiveny Galway (118)
Reeves Kildare (15)
Ballymallis Kerry (57)
Ballagharahin Laois (33)
Ballydrohid Offaly (17)
Dungar Offaly (43)
Ballinlough Offaly (46)
Killeenbrack Westmeath (24)
T
ABLE 1—(Continued)
The evolution of the Irish tower-house as a domestic space
125
F
IG. 2—Distribution map of the surveyed tower-houses by group (unassigned sites omitted).
Rory Sherlock
126
tifi cation of which space served as the hall is not entirely straightforward. Group B
contains 29 examples of tower-houses and it is notable that these are generally located
in the east of the country, being the predominant form recorded in Leinster and
east Ulster and being common also in south Tipperary. Two-thirds of the buildings
in this group, which could be dated tentatively, were assigned a ‘late’ date, while the
remainder which could be dated were thought to be ‘early’.
The third subgroup, Group C, is comprised of buildings, which have a single
principal vault that carries the hall at the topmost-fl oor level in the building and
where there is evidence to suggest that the principal private apartment was located
beneath the vault. The tower-houses within this subgroup are, therefore, somewhat
similar to those in Group A, but while the halls in Group A are found at second-fl oor
level, those in Group C are found at third- or fourth-fl oor levels. In addition, the
tower-houses in Group C each have a clearly identifi able space of relatively high
status beneath the principal vault and this may generally be considered to represent
the principal private apartment within the building. Group C contains seventeen
tower-houses which are located in counties Mayo, Galway, Clare, Tipperary, Offaly,
Kilkenny and Cork. Eight of the tower-houses in the subgroup were identifi ed as
‘early’ tower-houses and six were identifi ed as ‘late’ examples and so, of the fourteen
buildings within the group which could be dated tentatively, a slight majority are
thought to pre-date 1500. The tower-houses within Group C tend to have recognisable
halls which, though many are not as elaborate or monumental in form as the
halls in Group A, are nonetheless defi ned by greater architectural form and detail
than the halls in Group B examples. Multi-ope windows are common and decorative
arcades, rear arches and corbel courses are also known (Pl. II). It would appear that
in each tower-house in Group C
, the principal stair within the building terminated
at the hall and a secondary stair rose from the level of the hall to give access to the
wall walk and to any lesser chambers at higher levels, though the poor survival of the
uppermost levels of Coollisteige, Co. Clare; Lavallyconor, Co. Galway; and Coole,
Co. Offaly; make the access arrangements in these cases more diffi cult to follow.
The fourth subgroup, Group D, is comprised of buildings that have two principal
vaults and in the majority of these cases it appears that the hall was the topmost
principal chamber within the building and rested upon the upper principal vault. The
lower principal vault usually spans the main ground- or fi rst-fl oor chamber and the
principal private apartment is found between the upper and lower vaults, usually at
second-fl oor level. Group D contains 34 tower-houses, which are located in counties
Clare, Cork, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford. Fifteen of the
tower-houses in the subgroup were identifi ed as ‘early’ tower-houses and eight were
identifi ed as ‘late’ examples and so, of the 23 buildings within the subgroup which
could be dated tentatively, approximately two-thirds are thought to pre-date 1500.
The halls within tower-houses assigned to Group D tend to be quite similar to those
in Group C and so are generally recognisable as the most important space within the
building. Multi-ope windows are common and features such as decorative cornice
courses and fi nely carved rear arches are also evident. However, the role that the hall
plays in the access arrangements within the tower-house tends to be less well defi ned
than in the other groups for while in 53% of cases within the group the principal stair
ends at the hall and another stair serves the wall walks, at 38% of the sites the princi
The
evolution of the Irish tower-house as a domestic space
127
P
L. II—The upper end of the top-fl oor hall at Ballindoney West, Co. Tipperary. Note the twinope
cusped ogee-headed window, the triple arcade carried on tapering corbels and the fi nely
carved cornice (top right) (scale = 2m).
Rory Sherlock
128
pal stair continues upwards past the hall to give direct access to the uppermost levels
of the building. In this way, we may observe that in a signifi cant minority of towerhouses
within Group D, the hall does not form part of the access route between the
ground fl oor and the wall walks, a scenario not seen in the tower-houses of Groups
A and C. One exceptional site within this group is Tubbrid Upper, Co. Kilkenny,
which is included due to that fact that it has two principal vaults, located over the
main ground- and fi rst-fl oor chambers respectively. However, this building appears
to lie somewhere between Groups B and D due to the fact that access arrangements
within the building suggest that the hall was located at fi rst-fl oor level with private
accommodation above it, a reversal of the normal arrangements in the tower-houses
of Group D.
The fi fth subgroup, Group E, is comprised of buildings which have no principal
vault and so, by defi nition, all are considered to be ‘late’ examples. These
buildings vary widely in terms of size, but nevertheless a number of general observations
may be made. Firstly, the identifi cation of the hall in tower-houses within
Group E is often problematic and this diffi culty essentially derives from the lack of
a vault within the building and from the similarity between the principal chambers
at a number of different fl oor levels. The roots of this apparent similarity between
chambers probably lie in the evolution of the hall, and by extension the building
within which it is contained, from a public or semi-public space to a more private
space and so the striking, monumental halls noted particularly in Group A are not
found in Group E. While multi-ope windows remain common in Group E, other
indicators of high spatial status evident in Group A, such as tall fl oor-to-ceiling/
roof heights, ornate arcades, carved rear arches, and double window-seats are not
evident amongst the tower-houses of Group E. Ornamentation is largely reserved
for windows and fi re-places, though in some cases the status of the hall may have
been accentuated by, for example, panelling and stucco plasterwork, which no longer
survive. The location of the hall within tower-houses of Group E appears to vary
considerably and the hall seems to have been found, for example, at fi rst-fl oor level
in Rathmichael, Co. Dublin, and possibly Derryhiveny, Co. Galway, at second-fl oor
level in Togher, Co. Cork, and Ballinoroher, Co. Cork, and at third-fl oor level in
Ballymallis, Co. Kerry.
Discussion
Groups A, C and D—the western type
In discussing the social environments of the tower-houses within the various subgroups
outlined above, we may consider that the buildings of Groups A, C and D
together form a distinctive type of tower-house which is predominant in the west
of Ireland and is characterised by the positioning of the hall on the topmost fl oor,
where the smoke from a central hearth can rise unimpeded into the open roof space
overhead and exit from the building through a louver or vent. The primacy of the
hall as the most important space within tower-houses of Group A, and to a slightly
lesser extent in the tower-houses of Groups C and D, is clearly evident and this high
status, in a spatial and social sense, is refl ected in the morphology of these spaces.
The evolution of the Irish tower-house as a domestic space
129
The height of these chambers, together with their decorative embellishments, set the
halls apart from all other spaces within the buildings in which they are found and
it is these characteristics which clearly indicate that the hall, as a social construct,
was very much alive in the tower-houses of Groups A, C and D. Where a tentative
date could be assigned to individual buildings within Groups A, C and D, almost
75% of examples were thought to pre-date 1500 and so it may be argued, in general
terms, that the earlier Irish tower-houses tend to have clearly identifi able halls within
them.
There can be little doubt that Irish tower-houses cannot be treated as an
homogenous group of buildings, as the wide disparity in size, form, complexity and
decorative treatment clearly indicates that these structures were built to serve many
different purposes within a variety of social contexts. Setting aside the smallest
examples for the moment, one could argue that the earliest substantial tower-houses
were conceived and built as a framework—a physical framework to contain the late
medieval hall and a social framework to contain and facilitate late medieval life.
The halls within the earliest Irish tower-houses usually serve as important nodal
points in the access arrangements within the building. These halls, such as those at
Barryscourt and Dunmanus, both in Co. Cork; and Claregalway and Isert Kelly, both
in Co. Galway; are directly descended from the halls found in thirteenth-century
hall-houses and are unmistakable in their form and appearance. In each of these
buildings, the halls are signifi cantly more impressive than the other chambers in the
buildings in which they are found and are thus easily identifi ed by their size and their
high-quality features. Each of these features is designed to contribute to the visitors’
fi rst impression of the hall and they, together with the size and, most importantly,
the height of the space, serve to convey the function of the space to the visitor in an
unambiguous fashion. The apexes of the restored hall roofs at Barryscourt Castle
and Claregalway Castle are found 10.14m and 10.47m above their respective fl oor
surfaces and the remarkable height of these halls creates a distinct sense of occasion
within them. The monumentality of the hall within fi ner fi fteenth-century Irish
tower-houses is the result of a deliberate effort on the part of the builders to create a
physical space which could comfortably carry the symbological weight thrust upon
it by those who used it. The hall within a substantial tower-house of this period had
to look like a hall and feel like a hall to the visitor from the moment they entered
the space and so the form of the hall, with its central hearth, its dark roof timbers,
its ornate windows and its many doorways, gave physical form to the more tenuous
concept of lordship, which was based within it. One of the fi nest examples of
such a hall, though found in a building not included in this study, is the Great Hall
at Bunratty,
13 Co. Clare, a very large McNamara tower-house which appears to have
been built in the mid-fi fteenth century.
The centrality of the halls within the tower-houses of Barryscourt and
Bunratty, from which six and seven doorways respectively give access to lesser
chambers, could be considered as a physical manifestation of the centrality of the
13
Bunratty Castle, if included in this study, would belong to Group A.
Rory Sherlock
130
hall in medieval life and this device, whereby architectural form refl ects conceptual
form, is of great importance in the understanding of late medieval architecture. In the
same way in which many authors see a castle as ‘a clear statement of the standing,
power and lineage’
14 of the owner, particular elements within such castles may also
be designed to convey similar messages and this appears to have been very common
in larger tower-houses of the fi fteenth century, including many of those found
in Groups A, C and D. The impressive fi rst-fl oor hall found in the late thirteenthcentury
hall-house was elevated to second-fl oor level in the fi fteenth century as the
building which provided the framework for the hall was transformed from the simple
hall-house to the more complex tower-house. This development then continued
onwards into the tower-houses of Groups C and D, two closely related forms where
the hall continued to occupy the topmost fl oor within the building but where it was
now found at third- or fourth-fl oor level over an increased number of lesser chambers.
Group C halls commonly retain their important role within the access arrangements
of the tower-house, providing access to the upper stair leading to the wall walk
and, occasionally, to other chambers also. In contrast to this, a substantial minority
of the otherwise similar halls within tower-houses of Group D are actually somewhat
isolated from the access routes within the building in which they are found. This is
because the principal stair, though giving access to the hall, also continues onwards
to give direct access to the wall walk and so we now see some evidence for the hall
moving from a position of centrality towards one of peripherality.
Group B—the eastern type
The tower-houses of Group B may be described as an eastern type on the basis that
this form is mostly found in Leinster and east Ulster, though examples in Munster are
also known. These are, on average, the smallest tower-houses of the fi ve subgroups
described, as the average footprint of a Group B tower-house is 82.1m
2 compared
to an overall average footprint of 95.8m
2 and average footprint areas of 114.7m2,
100.9m
2, 109.3m2 and 88.4m2 for Groups A, C, D and E respectively. The small
tower-houses which populate Group B were not assigned to this classifi cation due
to their diminutive size however, but due to the fact that they each have two levels
of accommodation above their sole principal vault. This means that these buildings
differ signifi cantly from those in Groups A, C and D in the sense that a hall within a
Group B tower-house cannot rest upon a vault and also rise to the underside of the
tower-house roof above, the typical arrangement found within Groups A, C and D.
In the majority of cases, it appears that the hall in Group B tower-houses was carried
by the principal vault and was, therefore, covered by a horizontal timber fl oor
which carried the chamber(s) above. The halls within the tower-houses of Group B
are generally less well-defi ned than those found in Groups A, C and D, in the sense
that they lack the size, height and decorative embellishments which combine so well
to create the impressive halls found in many fi fteenth-century tower-houses. While
14
Richard Fawcett, Scottish architecture from the accession of the Stewarts to the reformation:
1371–1560,
The Architectural History of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1994), 237.
The evolution of the Irish tower-house as a domestic space
131
the halls within the tower-houses of Group B, the majority of which appear to date to
the sixteenth century, may well be furnished with ornate windows and decorative
window-seats, they cannot be compared, in architectural terms, with the lofty halls
of the earlier period. This trend towards simpler, less grandiose halls would appear
to be linked to the smaller size of the Group B tower-houses and so one may suggest
that these particular buildings did not serve precisely the same strata of society that
the earlier examples had done. It may be suggested that lesser gentry were now building
tower-houses, which were designed to meet their specifi c spatial requirements
and indeed there is evidence to suggest that many ‘halls’ in Group B tower-houses
should not actually be considered as such, but should instead be understood as a form
of Great Chamber, a point which underlines the fundamental difference between the
tower-houses of the western and eastern types.
We may argue, therefore, that as the period within which tower-houses were
built progressed, the trickle-down of the hall-centred building (i.e. the tower-house)
through a series of social strata was accompanied by a gradual diminution in the
architectural quality of the halls being built. The grand halls of Groups A, C and
D, which largely date to the fi fteenth century, remained in use but were added to
over time by, though not replaced by, the simpler ‘halls’ of Groups B and E, which
largely date to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The halls of Groups A, C and
D, at least 81% of which appear to have been heated by central hearths originally,
were superseded in style by the later examples of Groups B and E, at least 84% of
which had original fi re-places. Many of the earlier tower-house halls which had central
hearths within them were later fi tted with mural fi re-places instead and in some
cases, such as Lackeen, Co. Tipperary, and Isert Kelly, Co. Galway, the insertion of a
new chamber into the attic space over the hall was facilitated by the crude insertion
of a mural fi re-place to replace the central hearth.
To take a broader view for a moment, there exists a fundamental, but rarely
discussed, difference between Irish and Scottish tower-houses which is also of relevance
here. A number of authors have noted that the hall in the typical Scottish
tower-house is located upon the principal vault at fi rst-fl oor level and that the solar
was located above it.
15 This arrangement, which Cruden16 described as ‘the traditional
medieval hall up-ended, with the solar placed above the hall instead of at
one end of it’, may be compared to the Irish tower-houses of Group B, but it does
not refl ect the more common hall-over-solar arrangement found in the western type
of Irish tower-house. We may indeed argue, on the basis of the evidence outlined
above, that the arrangement whereby the hall is located on the uppermost level, and
in which the hall was originally heated by a central hearth, is, in fact, the typical
form of tower-house in fi fteenth-century Ireland. One of the major factors behind the
general failure to recognise the uniqueness of this arrangement is the failure to rec-
15
Cruden, The Scottish castle, 105; Ross Samson, ‘The rise and fall of tower-houses in postreformation
Scotland’, in Ross Samson (ed.),
The social archaeology of houses (Edinburgh
1990), 197–243: 207–08; A.M.T. Maxwell-Irving,
The Border towers of Scotland: their
history and architecture—the west march
(Stirling, 2000), 35–7.
16
Cruden, The Scottish castle, 105.
Rory Sherlock
132
ognise that many hall fi re-places in Irish tower-houses are, in fact, inserted features.
17
In summary, the development of the hall in the Irish tower-house, from a tall, elegant
space, which was heated by a central hearth and which was central to movement in
the building, to a lower room heated by a mural fi re-place that provided access to
few other areas, may be seen to represent the changing nature of social life in the late
medieval period.
Group E—the late tower-houses
The tower-houses of Group E were all built without principal vaults and so are all
considered to be ‘late’ examples. Their distribution ranges from mid-Leinster to
south-west Munster, but they are bound together by chronological affi nity rather
than by geographical location. Some of these buildings, including Derryhiveny, Co.
Galway; Ballinoroher, Co. Cork; Ballymallis, Co. Kerry; and Ballagharahin, Co.
Laois; rank amongst the largest of Irish tower-houses, but it is questionable whether
they really ever had halls, in the social sense of the term, within them. It is quite diffi -
cult, in some of these cases, to distinguish the ‘hall’ from other high-status chambers
within the building and it may, in fact, be suggested that a hall which is not clearly
identifi able as such cannot, by defi nition, be said to fulfi l this role.
The evolution of the hall in the Irish tower-house
There is little doubt that the lofty halls in many Irish tower-houses of the fi fteenth
century were generally used in a manner that would be recognisable to a visitor from
contemporary England or Scotland, even if the building within which the hall was
contained may have been somewhat unfamiliar. While such visitors may have been
surprised by the need to ascend to the second, third or even fourth fl oor of the building
in order to enter the hall, they would have been familiar with the tall windows,
the open roof space overhead and the general accentuation of the ‘upper’ end of the
hall at the slight expense of the ‘lower’ service end. Furthermore, though the timberwork
evidence does not survive, there may well have been a timber dais at the upper
end of the hall together with a screens passage at the lower end defi ned by a panelled
wall or screen. In fact, the window-sill levels at the upper end of the hall in the sixteenth-
century tower-house at Fiddaun, Co. Galway, being slightly higher than those
elsewhere in the room, may provide evidence that a dais once existed there. There
is strong evidence in the hall on the topmost fl oor of Aughnanure, Co. Galway, to
indicate that the lower end of the hall was once separated from the main body of the
space by a dividing wall or screen. The fenestration here suggests that the lower end
of the hall was divided horizontally also, with a screens passage at hall level and a
small chamber or gallery above it.
The central hearth in the hall would also have been familiar to many visitors,
despite the fact that many Scottish tower-houses had mural fi replaces within their
17
Rory Sherlock, ‘The late medieval fi replaces of County Cork’, Journal of the Cork
Archaeological and Historical Society
105 (2000), 207–30: 228.
The evolution of the Irish tower-house as a domestic space
133
halls from the time at which they were built. Wood
18 states that some English medieval
halls continued to be heated by a central hearth until the mid-sixteenth century,
though fi re-places began to replace central hearths in signifi cant numbers in the early
fi fteenth century. We may argue, therefore, that the builders of Irish tower-houses
in the fi fteenth century prioritised the central hearth and open roof space as critical
elements of hall design and so, when building tower-houses which were taller and
had more rooms than the hall houses which preceded them, Irish builders facilitated
these priorities by locating the extra chambers beneath the hall. By comparison, their
contemporaries in Scotland tended to prioritise the tradition and accessibility of the
fi rst-fl oor hall and so fi tted it with a mural fi re-place rather than a central hearth so
that additional chambers could be positioned immediately above it. Gernon, as stated
above, when visiting an Irish castle
c. 1620, records that the hall is the uppermost
room and that it features a central hearth, so there is some historical evidence to suggest
that the central hearth was still in use in the halls of certain Irish tower-houses
even into the early seventeenth century. It is quite possible that the construction
of tower-houses with halls heated by central hearths continued in Ireland into the
second half of the sixteenth century and so the scene depicted by Gernon may have
been less antiquated at his time than we may fi rst believe. In the case of Clara, Co.
Kilkenny, where a central hearth almost certainly heated the top-fl oor hall before
a mural fi re-place was inserted, a programme of dendrochronological analysis has
recently dated this building to
c. 1540.19 Other examples of tower-houses with halls
originally heated by central hearths which appear to date to the sixteenth century
include Cregg North, Co. Cork; Aughnanure, Co. Galway; Fiddaun, Co. Galway;
and Ballyallinan, Co. Limerick.
In contrast to this however, there is other historical evidence to suggest that
the hall within the tower-house had largely fallen out of use by the early seventeenth
century. The 1639 inventory of Bunratty, Co. Clare, values the furnishings of the
Great Hall at just £2, a paltry sum when compared to the valuation of over £52
placed upon the furnishings in the new Dining Room, which was added to the building
during the time of the fourth earl of Thomond (fl . 1581–1624).
20 The depiction
of the Great Hall at Bunratty in 1639, which shows it to contain nothing more than
a shuffl eboard table, two other tables, four rough hewn forms or benches, two old
leather stools, a pair of playing tables and a few old helmets and muskets, is perhaps
the most useful illustration of the decline of the hall as a social space in the early
decades of the seventeenth century.
In other cases, the surviving evidence suggests that the hall within the towerhouse
was eventually privatised and an external hall was created within the bawn
to take over the role formerly held by the topmost room within the tower. The foremost
example of this arrangement is at Aughnanure, Co. Galway, where a substantial
single-story hall was erected in the outer bawn in the sixteenth century (Pl. III)
18
Margaret Wood, The English medieval house (London, 1994), 257.
19
Conleth Manning, ‘Irish tower houses’, Europa Nostra Scientifi c Bulletin 63 (2009),
19–30: 27.
20
Brian Ó Dálaigh, ‘An inventory of the contents of Bunratty Castle and the will of Henry,
fi fth earl of Thomond, 1639’,
North Munster Antiquarian Journal 36 (1995), 139–65: 142–3.
Rory Sherlock
134
and we may initially suggest that the top-fl oor hall within the tower-house, with its
central hearth, screens passage and beautiful windows, was subsequently replaced
by the single-storey hall in the outer bawn. However, the relationship between the
hall within the tower and the hall in the bawn at this site has not been fully resolved
and as both tower and single-story hall appear to date to the sixteenth century, it is
possible that instead of one replacing the other, the two may have functioned concurrently.
While there is little or no evidence for such an arrangement in an Irish
context, some tower-houses in Scotland are known to have had a ‘common hall’ and
a ‘lord’s hall’ at the same time
21 and this may well have occurred at the O’Flaherty
21
Fawcett, Scottish architecture, 264–71; Chris Dalglish, ‘An age of transition? Castles and
the Scottish highland estate in the 16th and 17th centuries’,
Post-Medieval Archaeology 39
(2005), 243–66: 246.
P
L. III—The tower-house (right) and the remains of the single-storey hall (left) at Aughnanure, Co. Galway. The turret in
the centre of the photograph was located at the corner of the inner bawn within which the tower-house stood, while the
single-storey hall stood at the edge of the outer bawn and later partly collapsed when undermined by the nearby Drimeen
River.
The evolution of the Irish tower-house as a domestic space
135
Privacy in the Irish
tower-house
caput at Aughnanure, at the O’Rourke caput at Drumahaire,
22 Co. Leitrim, and at
many other Irish sites.
While the most important changes in the architecture of the Irish tower-house between
1400 and 1650 relate to the treatment of the hall, other developments are also worthy
of note. In discussing private space, we must acknowledge that our understanding of
the concept of privacy may well be at variance with that which was current in late
medieval Ireland,
23 but nevertheless we may strive to make certain observations on
the nature of private space in the Irish tower-house. A detailed analysis of the use
of space within Irish tower-houses
24 has shown that the spatial arrangements within
these buildings became simpler over time and this has been interpreted as evidence
for the gradual privatisation of space in the architecture of late medieval Ireland.
Where many fi fteenth-century tower-houses were built with highly complex internal
layouts in order to facilitate the separation of the public and private areas which coexisted
within them, the latest tower-houses were essentially private homes and so
simpler methods of spatial organisation were possible.
While considering the matter of privacy, it is interesting to note the presence
of ‘stair doorways’ in a number of Irish tower-houses.
25 While most tower-house
stairs appear to have provided unimpeded access to those wishing to ascend to their
highest level, in a number of tower-houses stair doorways, which could be used to
control access from the lower portions of a stair to the upper section, have been noted.
Evidence for stair doorways has been recorded in a number of tower-houses with
straight mural stairs including Isert Kelly, Co. Galway; Burnchurch, Co. Kilkenny;
Grallagh, Co. Tipperary; and possibly Kilcurl, Co. Kilkenny; while previously unrecorded
stair doorways have also been noted in two tower-houses with spiral stairs,
namely Ardamullivan, Co. Galway; and Ballagharahin, Co. Laois. At Isert Kelly,
Grallagh and possibly Kilcurl, the stair doorway was located between ground- and
fi rst-fl oor levels, while at Burnchurch and Ardamullivan (Pl. IV) the feature was
positioned between fi rst- and second-fl oor levels. In Ballagharahin, it was positioned
between the second and third fl oors. While the stair doorways at Isert Kelly and
Grallagh were clearly conceived as a security measure designed to add a further layer
of defence to the critical access route from the exterior to the uppermost levels of the
building, the stair doorways recorded at higher levels in Ardamullivan, Burnchurch
and Ballagharahin may have served as important social thresholds within these buildings
and may have demarcated a boundary between public and private space.
22
The O’Rourke hall at Drumahaire survives and appears to date to the fi fteenth or sixteenth
centuries, but it is likely that a tower house once stood on the site also. Peter Harbison, ‘
Our
treasure of antiquities
’: Beranger and Bigari’s antiquarian sketching tour of Connacht in
1779
(Bray, 2002), 43–7.
23
Hanneke Ronnes, ‘“A solitary place of retreat”: Renaissance privacy and Irish architecture’,
International Journal of Historical Archaeology
8 (2004), 101–17.
24
Rory Sherlock, ‘Changing perceptions: spatial analysis and the study of the Irish
tower house’,
Chateau Gaillard 24 (2010), forthcoming.
25
Sherlock, The social environment of the Irish tower house, 107–08, 179–82.
Rory Sherlock
136
P
L. IV—The stair doorway at Ardamullivan, Co. Galway, viewed from above.
The principal private apartments, or solars, within Irish tower-houses can
vary considerably in terms of size, location and decorative accomplishment, but
a number of general observations may be made in the context of the hall-based
classifi cation discussed previously. In almost half of the tower-houses in Group A
(Barryscourt, Lisnacullia, Dunmanus West, Bally Beg and Nodstown), the solar is
The evolution of the Irish tower-house as a domestic space
137
found at a higher level than the hall and is located in a corner turret or minor chamber,
while in the remaining buildings in the group, it appears that the solar was located
below the vault. In the tower-houses of Groups C and D, the solar is also found
below the hall and commonly features the only mural fi re-place in the building. In
most examples, the solar is accessed directly from the main stair and gives access
to a number of other spaces, commonly including a minor chamber and a latrine
chamber, and so it is logical to interpret these interconnected spaces as a high-status
suite of rooms which together served as the principal private apartment. The solars
in Group B tower-houses are commonly found immediately above the hall and are
often identical in size to it, though they are frequently less well provided with decorative
embellishments.
The majority of Irish tower-houses have at least one latrine chamber, with
many having two or more such features, and amongst buildings with two latrine
chambers, more than 80% of examples display a differentiated access arrangement
whereby one chamber is accessed from a ‘public’ space (e.g. the main stair), while
the other is accessed via a ‘private’ area (i.e. the solar).
26 Tower-houses that were
not provided with latrine chambers are generally considered to have been built
after latrines had fallen out of fashion in favour of chamber-pots and close-stools.
Schofi eld
27 notes that close-stools are mentioned in inventories of wealthy London
houses in the late fi fteenth century and that chamber-pots were more common in the
late sixteenth century, but it seems likely that latrine chambers continued to be seen
as necessary elements of tower-house architecture in Ireland into the late sixteenth
century. At Ballinoroher, Co. Cork, a number of small chambers, measuring just
1.4m
2 on average, which are located above one another on the fi rst, second and third
fl oors in a manner reminiscent of typical latrine chambers and which are featureless
except for a single small window each, are likely to have served as privy chambers
containing close-stools.
It is no longer appropriate to consider Irish tower-houses as a monolithic entity
28
and we must recognise that the developmental shifts in tower-house architecture
are clearly rooted in concurrent cultural and social changes. A number of
authors
29 have sought to divide Irish tower-houses according to typological classifi
cations and these efforts have been worthy of merit, but the social origins or
26
Sherlock, The social environment of the Irish tower house’, 129–36.
27
John Schofi eld, Medieval London houses (New Haven & London, 2003), 87.
28
H.G. Leask has stated that tower houses ‘subsisted with but few changes, and these only of
detail, from about 1450 onwards for two hundred years’ (H.G. Leask, ‘Derryhivenny Castle,
Co. Galway’,
Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society 18 (1938–9),
72–6: 73).
29
A.S.K Abraham, ‘Patterns of landholding and architectural patronage in late medieval
Meath’, unpublished PhD thesis, Queen’s University Belfast, 1991: 250–5; C.J. Donnelly, ‘A
typological study of the tower houses of County Limerick’,
Journal of the Royal Society of
Antiquaries of Ireland
129 (1999), 19–39.
Conclusion
Rory Sherlock
138
consequences of the different forms observed have not been widely explored. We
can now see how the hall within the Irish tower-house developed and declined
between 1400 and 1650 and we may perhaps consider the wider context of such
changes through comparison with a series of social and architectural changes
which took place in Britain at the same time. Three points are of particular signifi -
cance here and though derived from evidence from Britain, they are nonetheless
of relevance. Firstly, Thompson states that the medieval household ‘grew in size
almost continuously, reaching a climax in the fi fteenth century’.
30 Secondly, the
number of halls in the landscape grew signifi cantly in the late medieval period
and Thompson argues that one reason for this ‘is that their use spread down the
social scale, being a necessary part of the need to show status by people who had
not formerly enjoyed this privilege’.
31 These two points appear to be particularly
relevant for Irish tower-house studies, as these buildings had more chambers
within which to accommodate a growing household than earlier hall-houses had
and they also were clearly built by a broad spectrum of society in comparison to
earlier castles, which were more distinctly the products of the upper echelons of
society. The third important point relates to the eventual decline of the hall and
evidence suggests that this decline occurred during the era within which towerhouses
were constructed. Thompson states: ‘The medieval style of household disintegrated
in
c.1600 and the hall as a viable building tended to disappear about
the same time’.
32 The changing nature of the household in the sixteenth century,
whereby the lord no longer presided over his hall directly, but tended to withdraw
to private chambers instead, had a direct impact on the use of space within lordly
residences and, in time, fundamentally infl uenced the design of such buildings
also.
Despite the general lack of historical documentation and the poor survival
rate of timber-work and wall paintings
33 in Irish tower-houses, we can see that some
understanding of the social environment of these buildings may be achieved. The
form of the hall of the fi fteenth and early sixteenth centuries has its origins in the
halls of the earlier castles and we can assume that the social conventions which
applied in them were derived, at least to some extent, from the same source. The
accounts written by visitors to Irish castles in the late medieval period suggest that
while the hall as an architectural space was easily recognisable, the activities which
took place within it were slightly less familiar due to them being a blend of Anglo–
Norman and Gaelic traditions of social interaction and hospitality. One of the most
interesting ways in which cultural differences become apparent in the context of the
Irish tower-house is through the evidence for the subdivision of such buildings into
30
Michael Thompson, The medieval hall: the basis of secular domestic life, 600–1600 AD
(Aldershot, 1995), 146.
31
Thompson, The medieval hall, 138.
32
Thompson, The medieval hall, 113.
33
Wall paintings have been recorded in just four tower houses, though they are likely to
have once existed in many more. Karena Morton, ‘Irish medieval wall painting’,
Medieval
Ireland: the Barryscourt lectures I–X
(Carrigtwohill, 2004), 313–49: 315–18.
The evolution of the Irish tower-house as a domestic space
139
lesser units of accommodation.
34 This scenario, where two people were recognised
as owners of different suites within a single tower-house, clearly occurred after the
building had ceased to be inhabited by a single wealthy individual and thus probably
occurred after the hall had fallen out of use as a communal space for social interaction.
Documentary evidence for the subdivision of tower-houses into lesser units of
accommodation has only been found to date in Gaelic or heavily Gaelicised areas
and such references date to between 1598 and 1635, thereby spanning Thompson’s
proposed date of
c. 1600 for hall decline in Britain.
There is a variety of other evidence to suggest that while halls heated with
central hearths continued to be built in Irish tower-houses well into the sixteenth
century, the hall as a social and architectural space had largely fallen out of favour by
the early 1600s. The division of the second-fl oor hall in the fi fteenth-century towerhouse
at Isert Kelly, Co. Galway, is quite interesting in this context. The subdivision
of the hall, which probably occurred when a fi re-place which dates to 1604 was also
inserted, involved the creation of a new ceiling and a new timber wall which divided
the elaborate hall both horizontally and vertically into at least three lesser spaces.
The reordering of tower-house halls through the replacement of central hearths with
mural fi re-places went hand-in-hand with the insertion of new chambers into the
formerly smoke-fi lled roof space overhead and examples of this practice may also be
seen at Pallas, Co. Galway; Lissamota, Co. Limerick; and Lackeen, Co. Tipperary.
As Girouard has stated, ‘The retreat of the lord from the hall to great chamber
may have led to a lessening of the sense of community in the household, but it
accentuated its sense of hierarchy’.
35 While the construction of fortifi ed houses in
the years between 1580 and 1650 is sometimes considered to represent the last phase
of castle construction in Ireland, we could instead argue that the last castles to be
built in the country were those tower-houses which had a fully functioning hall at
their heart. While fortifi ed houses such as Portumna may have had spaces labelled as
‘halls’ within them,
36 these did not function, in the medieval sense of the term, and so
these buildings, together with the latest tower-houses, should perhaps be considered
as defensible private residences rather than as ‘true’ castles. The Irish tower-house
comfortably spans the architectural transition from castle to house and, in doing so,
gives physical expression to the evolving nature of Irish society in the late medieval
period. In conclusion, if we wish to understand the nature of domestic life in Irish
tower-houses more fully, we must now turn to the bawn and address the remarkable
lack of excavated evidence associated with these settlement centres.
37 A wealth of
34
Rory Sherlock, ‘Cross-cultural occurrences of mutations in tower-house architecture:
evidence for cultural homogeneity in late medieval Ireland?’,
Journal of Irish Archaeology
15 (2006), 73–91: 85–7.
35
Mark Girouard, Life in the English country house: a social and architectural history (New
Haven & London, 1978), 52.
36
David Newman Johnson, ‘Portumna Castle: a little-known early survey and some
observations’, in John Bradley (ed.),
Settlement and society in medieval Ireland (Kilkenny,
1988), 477–503: 486.
37
Terry Barry, ‘Harold Leask’s “single towers”: Irish tower houses as part of larger settlement
complexes’,
Chateau Gaillard 22 (2006), 27–33.
Rory Sherlock
140
information on the nature of Irish life in the late medieval period awaits discovery in
the shadow of our tower-houses and it seems highly likely that substantial evidence
for single-storey halls, small houses and a variety of service buildings, whether constructed
with masonry or with timber, clay and wattle, is there for a focused research
project to fi nd.
This paper is based upon my doctoral research which was undertaken in the
Department of Archaeology, NUI Galway. The fi eldwork element of this research
programme was kindly supported by funding from The Heritage Council through
their grant scheme which supports research into the architectural heritage of Ireland.
Thanks are also due to Dr Kieran O’Conor, Dr Elizabeth FitzPatrick, Professor John
Waddell (NUI Galway) and Dr Oliver Creighton (University of Exeter) for their
support in this research, and to the many landowners who kindly facilitated the fi eld
survey programme.
