Why so few historic buildings in Ireland?

Hamsterchops · 01-09-2020 10:38pm

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

I think what OP was referring to was the ANCIENT stuff, like the Norman churches, the timber framed housing, the pubs extant since the 16th c or before with uneven floors, the thatched cottages in a cluster, the village green, and so on.

Stratford on Avon is one example.

Exactly what I'm talking about .....

So many examples in towns across England & Wales.

Hurrache · 01-09-2020 10:42pm

Man with broke phone wrote: »

British probably burned them.

Moreso the Irish burned them, many were seen as symbols of British rule and landlords.

looksee · 01-09-2020 10:54pm

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Well Tudor styles in Ireland were basically mud huts! Just like in England for the agrarian populace.

Some "baronial halls" do exist like Carrick as mentioned but considering the centuries of conflict and retribution it's probably not a shock that few "domestic" structures of that era exist. It should be said some exist but as sections of a more modern structure so can be hard to spot.

One of that type in Waterford that is very central in T&H Doolans which was build in 1710 but has features from the 11th century.

I'd bet there are not too many Tudor timber houses with quoins.

Reginald's tower in Waterford is the oldest continually used municipal building in Ireland.

JustAThought · 01-09-2020 11:17pm

Hamsterchops wrote: »

Exactly what I'm talking about .....

So many examples in towns across England & Wales.

OP seems to be blithely and blissfully unaware that the UK and Ireland are two entirely different countries. Also shocking lack of basic knowledge about Irish history and fight for emancipation. Perhaps the OP dosn’t know or should google about the fight for Catholic Emancipation and its legal basis. Catholics (majority of the population) not allowed to have civil servant jobs,Catholics not allowed to speak their own native tongue, Catholics not allowed to recieve an education hence illegal hedge schools, CaTholics not allowed to own property over a hovel value, Catholics not allowed to pass land to one child only but forced to subdivide each tiny holding amongst all children leading to subsistance farming & dire poverty, Catholics not allowed to own a horse for personal use or farming over a pitiful value making ploughing a manual backbreakng task, land taken from landed catholic families and given forcibly to UK Protestants to then rent to subsistance Itish families farmers for impossible sums or for the faMilies toliterally be thrown onto the streets/roads and forced to starve, go to the workhouse or emigrate on coffin ships etc
There is a reason we fought the british empire for generations - finally winning our independence just over 100 years ago. There is a reason why the continued embedded hatred and discrimination in the North caused so much tragedy and hatred and murders and ruined lives well into the 1990’s.

We had better things to be thinking about than pretty houses for future generations.
Most prosperous towns were Dominated by wealthy Protrstants whose houses may have survived or were Market Towns or Garrison Towns where the dominant buildings were the courthouses and administration buildings, tax offices, garrison barracks and cottages for british soldiers, the main constabulary houses etc

Thankfully most issues now resolved and we are stuck with our own government taxing us to extinction instead.

Del.Monte · 01-09-2020 11:43pm

^^^ Lovely simplistic analysis of 800 years of oppression - must be wonderful to see everything in black and white.

Peregrinus · 02-09-2020 2:31am

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

How did that survive? Is it the original or a pastiche do you know..

It's a pastiche. The building dates from 1710 and, even then, half-timbering was a historical style. Plus, I strongly suspect that the half-timbering isn't original to the building, but was applied later - probably in the nineteenth or even early twentieth century, when mock-Tudor was fashionable.

Plus, the windows are clearly modern.

Lime Tree Farm · 02-09-2020 6:52am

https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/22501100/t-and-h-doolan-great-georges-street-waterford-city-waterford-county-waterford

bobbyy gee · 02-09-2020 7:40am

the English burnt them down
the Irish burnt them down
https://flowtechinc.com/irelands-architecture-history/

OscarMIlde · 02-09-2020 8:42am

Leixlip Castle was built in 1172, and is still inhabited to this day.

Harry Palmr · 02-09-2020 9:32am

Lime Tree Farm wrote: »

https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/22501100/t-and-h-doolan-great-georges-street-waterford-city-waterford-county-waterford

When it was open in interior business (and that was a decade ago) you had to watch your head if much more than 6 feet tall,a very cosy ceiling height!

Hamsterchops · 02-09-2020 3:46pm

JustAThought wrote: »

OP seems to be blithely and blissfully unaware that the UK and Ireland are two entirely different countries.

Two islands next door to each other since the beginning of time & for eternity, hence me asking why so few ancient town centre buildings on this island, that's all . . . .

Britain was heavily bombed during WWII yet she still has so many old buildings, while we don't :cool:

Peregrinus · 03-09-2020 3:29am

Hamsterchops wrote: »

Two islands next door to each other since the beginning of time & for eternity, hence me asking why so few ancient town centre buildings on this island, that's all . . . .

Britain was heavily bombed during WWII yet she still has so many old buildings, while we don't :cool:

Britain wasn't heavily bombed. Germany was heavily bombed.

And, in both countries (but especially in Germany) buildings that appear to be old heritage buildings may in fact turn out to be post-1945 facsimiles of old heritage buildings that were lost in the war. In Germany, in fact, this can be true of whole districts.

dulpit · 03-09-2020 3:36am

Hamsterchops wrote: »

Two islands next door to each other since the beginning of time & for eternity, hence me asking why so few ancient town centre buildings on this island, that's all . . . .

1 Island was a coloniser, the other a colony.

gozunda · 03-09-2020 3:59am

bobbyy gee wrote: »

the English burnt them down
the Irish burnt them down
https://flowtechinc.com/irelands-architecture-history/

One of the reasons was that a lot of wooden medieval and later buildings fell down due to damp and humid conditions.

Ireland has a damp and temperate climate. Wood does not last.

Put up a wooden shed or fence and wait 10 years. Similar happened to many early building which literally fell apart after a couple of decades of Irish conditions.

The South of England is much drier and warmer than most of Ireland. Those houses were more likley to survive.

Go to Scotland or coastal Wales and its the same and there's bugger all early wooden buildings survived.

Peregrinus · 03-09-2020 4:06am

It's really down to prosperity. A society has to have attained a certain level of prosperity before many people can afford to build in a way that will last. Before that point, castles and churches might be built out of stone, but virtually everything else is jerry-built, and falls down or, if it is damaged, is not considered worth repairing. So buildings are constantly replaced by newer builldings on the same site, and you have few or no suriviving private residences or commercial buildings from the period.

England basically reached this level of prosperity during the Tudor era, so from that point on they were building enough durable houses, etc, that some of them have lasted. So, say, from the early sixteenth century. Ireland didn't get there until the late seventeenth. Whereas if you go to, say, Italy, they got there well before England so you have plenty of houses, villas, etc from the fifteenth century or before.

Captain Havoc · 03-09-2020 11:41am

There are loads of historic buildings in urban areas. A lot of them get hidden behind modern frontage.

gozunda · 03-09-2020 2:32pm

Captain Havoc wrote: »

There are loads of historic buildings in urban areas. A lot of them get hidden behind modern frontage.

True. Not sure about that there's 'loads' though.

https://www.thejournal.ie/oldest-houses-buildings-dublin-4512711-Feb2019/

https://comeheretome.com/2012/12/17/dublins-last-surviving-cage-work-house/

Peregrinus · 04-09-2020 2:45am

Captain Havoc wrote: »

There are loads of historic buildings in urban areas. A lot of them get hidden behind modern frontage.

Depends on what you mean by "historic". There are really small numbers of pre-1700 private residential buildings still to be found in Irish towns. There would be more in in England and many, many more in France, Italy, Germany, etc.

And the "modern frontage" is often eighteenth or nineteenth century.

tromtipp · 11-09-2020 4:34pm

Many of Dublin's medieval and early modern buildings were deliberately destroyed by the Wide Streets Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Streets_Commission.

In smaller towns there is probably a lot more 17thand even 16th century fabric hidden behind later facades than we might expect - in Kilkenny, Rothe House isn't the only surviving 16th century building - but in many cases dating is only going to be possible if details are examined by experts. Town buildings were often stone - it's possible that continental/southern English style cage work houses were never common here - but look at all the medieval stone visible in central Galway.

Yellow_Fern · 13-09-2020 9:19pm

Given the expertise on this thread would anyone be able to date when these these two old buildings were built? I spotted themin old photos of Waterford and Kilkenny. The kilkenny building is a gable fronted structure to the left of Shee Almshouse.

Captain Havoc · 14-09-2020 4:18pm

archaeology.ie is your only friend.

https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/12001074/e-centre-ace-repairs-framemakers-rose-inn-street-gardens-st-johns-par-kilkenny-county-kilkenny

Yellow_Fern · 14-09-2020 8:19pm

Captain Havoc wrote: »

archaeology.ie is your only friend.

https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/12001074/e-centre-ace-repairs-framemakers-rose-inn-street-gardens-st-johns-par-kilkenny-county-kilkenny

Thanks. I find that site great for Georgian stuff but there is some missing information for earlier stuff. The description in that report doesn't seem to match the photograph from 1900.

[Deleted User] · 14-09-2020 9:09pm

Hamsterchops wrote: »

Two islands next door to each other since the beginning of time & for eternity, hence me asking why so few ancient town centre buildings on this island, that's all . . . .

Britain was heavily bombed during WWII yet she still has so many old buildings, while we don't :cool:

Plenty of old buildings around if you look.
Galway has a medieval parish church in the middle that wouldn't look out of place in Midsomer Murders.
Wander around and you will see Lynches Castle, Blakes Castle, thick stone walls, look up and you will see loads of medieval bits still around like old windows or carvings.
Go into lots of shops or pubs and you will see random thick medieval walls.
The middle of Portwest on High Street (what used to be Kennys Bookshop) is the core of another old tower.

Go out the country and you won't get as much but there are tower houses that have lasted. Most people lived in poverty - no one preserved those houses.

The ones you seem to be comparing to in England were very much the homes of the well to do, not the serfs.

kildarejohn · 15-09-2020 10:19am

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

Thanks. I find that site great for Georgian stuff but there is some missing information for earlier stuff. The description in that report doesn't seem to match the photograph from 1900.

I am no expert on Kilkenny, but from experience of the NIAH descriptions of buildings in other towns, they are often quite wrong. My impression is that the people who carried out the reporting work in the early 2000's were architecturally qualified, but with no specific heritage architecture knowledge or training as historians. They seem to report (as if it were factual) their opinion of the building based only on an external visual survey, with no historical research.

Why so few historic buildings in Ireland?

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