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Redefining a Forgotten Phase of Irish Castle Construction Frank J Hall

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Redefining a Forgotten Phase of Irish Castle Construction Frank J Hall Separating the Stronghouse: Redefining a Forgotten Phase of Irish Castle Construction Frank J Hall To cite this version: Frank J Hall. Separating the Stronghouse: Redefining a Forgotten Phase of Irish Castle Construction. Château Gaillard. Etudes de castellologie médiévale (CHATEAU 29), 2020, 978-2-84133-998-3. hal- 03125888 HAL Id: hal-03125888 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03125888 Submitted on 29 Jan 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. separating the stronghouse: redefining a forgotten phase of irish castle construction u Frank J. Hall 1 y the 16th century, the tower house was by far the separates out stronghouses from fortified houses based on B most common castle type in Ireland and would con- their form, but, despite this, scholarship in Ireland still did tinue to be a popular choice of defended residence well into not really consider the former structures as belonging to a the 17th century. While no specific date marks the end of distinct castle type with its own architectural style 5. castle construction in Ireland 2, it is generally accepted that While Sweetman goes as far as to identify strong- by the mid-17th century, castles ceased to be a choice for houses as signifying the final phase of castle construction those building elite residences and fortifications. Indeed, in Ireland 6, he also notes that many have been incorrectly Renaissance architectural trends had begun influencing identified or not recognised at all 7, and that by the very lordly and gentry architecture in Ireland by the late 16th cen- close of the 20th century, no adequate survey had yet been tury, beginning a gradual shift away from castle building 3. undertaken on this type of castle 8. More recently, Wead- However, this change was by no means instantaneous, nor ick’s study of fortified houses and the elite architecture of did late tower houses of the late 16th and early 17th centuries the early 17th century considered stronghouses as too like necessarily mark the final phase of castle construction in “fortified houses” and “plantation castles” to consider them Ireland. Rather, while Renaissance ideals were displayed on their own merits 9. While critics of terms such as “fortified through the advent of fortified house construction, another house” and “stronghouse” point out the problems these new form of castle appeared in Ireland – the stronghouse. classifications have created analytically, relying too heavily Research carried out by Leask in the early 1960s, while on a Darwinian model of evolution away from castles and not explicitly using the term “stronghouse”, attributes the towards houses 10, such classifications have nonetheless con- scarcity of attention paid to buildings of 17th-century date tributed to the confusion and misunderstandings in schol- in Ireland to both a dearth of well-preserved extant remains arship surrounding stronghouses and other contemporary attributable to this period and what he describes as their defensive residences. When stronghouses have been closely lack of “romantic glamour” in comparison to earlier medi- considered, rarely has it been based on their own merits, but eval castles 4. Craig’s later discussion of similar buildings rather in comparison to other more visually impressive and 1. Galway Doctoral Research Scholar, School of Geography and Archae- ology, NUI Galway, Ireland. 6. Sweetman 1999, 193. 2. O’Keeffe 2015, 303. 7. Ibid., 198. 3. McNeill 1997, 229. 8. Ibid., 193. 4. Leask 1961, 243. 9. Weadick 2009, 64. 5. Craig 1982, 134. 10. O’Keeffe & Quirke 2009, 98-101. Château Gaillard 29…, Caen, PUC (Publications du CRAHAM), 2020, p. 161-164 162 Frank J. Hall imposing structures. As such, to separate the scholarship buildings had slightly more commodious quarters, often surrounding fortified houses from that regarding strong- having had fireplaces and transomed-and-mullioned win- houses is near impossible, and in order to define the latter, dows. Externally, stronghouses are almost invariably located one must first distinguish it from the former. with bawns, which are mostly built of mortared masonry, Fortified houses have been defined based on several although sometimes earth-and-timber defences were used. key features; essentially, they are stone houses laid out in an The focus of the stronghouse was not necessarily on comfort, elongated floor-plan rather than the vertical arrangement of but rather on practical construction16, as evidenced by their tower houses, favouring wooden stairs, floors, and internal tendency to be sited within earlier fortified sites. partitions over stone ones. They can be dated to between Dundonnell Castle in County Roscommon provides us c. 1580 and c. 1650 AD on either historical or stylistic grounds with a good example of an Irish stronghouse, in both its and they can have gun loops, bartizans, machicolations and architecture and its siting (fig. 2). Dundonnell is situated corner towers or wings and tended to lie within defended within an earlier ringwork castle, whose enclosure now bawns 11. This definition, while denoting some of the key acted as a bawn (defined by an earthen bank, which was architectural features of defensible buildings of the early presumably, surmounted by a palisade) for the strong- 17th century and, indeed, fortified houses, is sufficiently vague house 17. The stronghouse itself measures 13.9 m by 8.15 m, enough to allow for variation and confusion when classifying with walls approximately 1.3 m thick. There are four both fortified houses and stronghouses. While the architec- gun-loops on the ground level, one in each angle of the tural and defensive features noted above are indeed aspects structure, and an additional three can be seen at first-floor of fortified houses, one key aspect has not been discussed: level. The remnants of a machicolation are also visible over symmetry (fig. 1). As Sweetman notes, “the builders of these what was the ground-floor doorway, as evidenced by the structures [fortified houses] were concerned with providing remaining corbels in the east gable, though the eastern a house of formal and symmetrical plan on Renaissance lines end of the northern wall containing the entranceway itself which answered a desire for more luxurious living stand- has been destroyed. The gun-loops and the machicolation ards but sacrificed nothing of the defensive nature of the emphasises the structure’s focus on defence, but it was not building” 12. This focus on Renaissance-inspired symmetry without comfort, with three large south-facing windows at is one of the key aspects separating fortified houses from first-floor level and two fireplaces with corresponding dia- stronghouses architecturally. Not only do stronghouses not mond chimney stacks in each gable visible at this level too. display the symmetry and comfort present in the larger and Stronghouses were not entirely uncomfortable, as is clear more luxurious fortified houses, but they also have a clearer from examples like Dundonnell. However, the priority placed focus on defence, at least from small-scale raids. on defence cannot be ignored: indeed, the emphasis on pro- What is a stronghouse then? The term itself has been tection may have been what made them desirable habitations. used in scholarship, but not consistently. Salter uses the Arguably, common elements seen on stronghouses, such term “stronghouse” to refer to “a mansion capable of being as gun-loops and machicolations, and their location within defended against an attack” 13 and others use variations on bawns, made them as worthy of being called castles as tower the term in much the same context 14, failing to truly differ- houses. Like late tower houses, stronghouses were seemingly entiate between fortified houses and stronghouses as a result. erected with unrest and small-scale raids in mind – being Ultimately, Sweetman laid the groundwork for the definition built at an uncertain time in Irish history, in the aftermath of stronghouses as they are currently viewed 15. Stronghouses of the bloody Nine Years’ War, at a time of political and are typically smaller in area than fortified houses, with no real social change, when much Irish Catholic land was being emphasis on symmetry, as noted, being no more than two confiscated (see fig. 3). The emphasis in stronghouses is on storeys in height (but sometimes with an attic over). Invaria- practicality, defence and economy of scale in comparison bly, they had wooden floors and partitions. The ground floors to the better designed, more commodious fortified houses were primarily defensive, with thick walls, being usually with their symmetrical facades, influenced by Renaissance lit by only arrow loops or gun loops. Several featured box architectural principles and philosophical concepts, although machicolations over ground-floor doorways, which were not there are similarities. It is argued, therefore, that stronghouses necessarily in the centre of the building. The first floor of these were and are a distinct form of castle in their own right. 11. Definition from the Archaeological Survey of Ireland, National Monu- 14. Waterman 1961, 263; McNeill 1997, 229. ments Service, Department of Arts, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht. 15. Sweetman 1999, 176, 193-198. 12. Sweetman 1999, 175. 16. Curley 2016, 64. 13. Salter 1993, 4. 17. Ibid., 63. Separating the Stronghouse: Redefining a Forgotten Phase of Irish Castle Construction 163 Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 1 A view of Portumna Castle, County Galway from the north. Note the symmetrical nature of the building in the placement of windows, as well as the corner towers allowing flanking fire across the entranceway.
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