The Irish Roundhouse
"Before the introduction of Christianity, buildings in Ireland, whether domestic, military, or sepulchral, were generally round or oval. The quadrangular shape, which was used in the churches in the time…
From: Unknown To: 1906 C.E.
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“The House,” from A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland by Patrick Weston Joyce, 1906.
Before the introduction of Christianity, buildings in Ireland, whether domestic, military, or sepulchral, were generally round or oval. The quadrangular shape, which was used in the churches in the time of St. Patrick, came very slowly into use, and round structures finally disappeared only in the fourteenth or fifteenth century.
But the round shape was not universal, even in the most ancient period. The great Banqueting-Hall of Tara was quadrangular, as we see by its ruins at the present day; and in case of many of the ordinary good-sized dwelling-houses, the walls were straight and parallel. Some of the old lisses or forts still to be seen are of this shape: and even where the surrounding rampart was round, the wooden houses it enclosed were often quadrangular.
The common Irish word for a house is tech, Lat. tectum. A dwelling in general is denoted by arm; a homestead by baile, now generally anglicised bally, but used in a more extended sense to denote a townland. The word brug or briujh [broo] was also applied to a large dwelling.
It has sometimes been stated that there were no towns or cities in ancient Ireland: but this statement is misleading. There were many centres of population, though they were never surrounded by walls; and the dwellings were detached and scattered a good deal—not closely packed as in modern towns.
In our old writings, both native and Anglo-Irish, we have many records of towns and cities. Then we know that some of the large monasteries had two or three thousand students, which implies a total population much larger. Some of the provisions of the Brehon Law show that numbers of lis-dwellings must have been clustered together.
The dwelling-houses, as well indeed as the early churches, were nearly always of wood, as that material was much the most easily procured. The custom of building in wood was so general in Ireland that it was considered a characteristic of the Irish—more Scottorum, "after the manner of the Scots"—as Bede expresses it. Yet we know that the Britons, Saxons, and Franks also very generally built in wood. Wooden houses, highly ornamented, continued in use in Dublin, Drogheda, and other towns, down to the last century.
But although wood building was general in Ireland before the twelfth century, it was not universal: for some stone churches were erected from the time of the introduction of Christianity: beehive-shaped houses, as well as cahers and cashels, were built of stone, without mortar, from pre-historic times: and the remains of these primitive structures—churches, houses, and cahers—are still to be seen in many parts of Ireland. In all these mortarless buildings, the stones, though in their natural state—not hammered or chiselled into shape—are fitted to each other with great skill and accuracy: or, as Petrie expresses it, "with wonderful art."
The dwelling-houses were almost always constructed of wickerwork. The wall (fraig) was formed of long stout poles placed in a circle, if the house was to be round, standing pretty near each other, with their ends fixed deep in the ground, the spaces between closed in with rods and twigs neatly and firmly interwoven; generally of hazel. The poles were peeled and polished smooth. The whole surface of the wickerwork was plastered on the outside, and made brilliantly white with lime, or occasionally striped in various colours; leaving the white poles exposed to view.
When the house was to be four-sided, the poles were set in two parallel rows, filled in with wickerwork. The height of the wall depended on the size of the house. In small houses it was low, so that often the thatch was within reach of the hand: in large dwellings it was usually high. The walls of the Banqueting-Hall at Tara were at least 45 feet high. In the large houses there were often two stories. When there was more than one apartment in a house, each had a separate wall and roof: except, of course, where one apartment was over another.
Building in wickerwork was common to the Celtic people of Ireland, Scotland, and Britain. It is very often referred to in Irish writings of all kinds. In the Highlands of Scotland wattled or wicker houses were used, even among high-class people, down to the end of the eighteenth century; and it is probable that they continued in use in Ireland to as late a period.
In many superior houses, and in churches, a better plan of building was adopted, by forming the wall with sawed planks instead of wickerwork. In the houses of the higher classes the doorposts and other special parts of the dwelling and furniture were often made of yew, carved, and ornamented with gold, silver, bronze, and gems. We know this from the old records; and still more convincing evidence is afforded by the Brehon Law, which prescribes fines for scratching or otherwise disfiguring the posts or lintels of doors, the heads or posts of beds, or the ornamental parts of other furniture.
Conjectural plan of homestead of a well-to-do farmer of the bo-aire class, constructed from the descriptions given in the Brehon Laws. "Dw," family dwelling-house, of wickerwork, 27 feet in diameter, with three outside sleeping-rooms (which might be either round or rectangular): "Kit, kitchen: "K," kiln (chiefly for corn-drying): "B," Barn: "C," calf-house: "P," pig-house: "S," sheep-house. The whole group surrounded by a circular rath or defensive entrenchment, with one entrance. The cows and horses were kept outside this enclosure.
The roof of the circular house was of a conical shape, brought to a point, with an opening in the centre for the smoke. It was of wickerwork or hurdles supported by rafters sloping upwards from the tops of the wall-poles all round, to the centre at the very top. The roof of the quadrangular houses was much like that of the common run of houses of the present day. If the house was large, the conical roof of those of circular form was supported by a tall, strong pole standing on the centre of the floor; in case the house was quadrangular, there was a row of such supporting poles, or two rows if the structure was very large.
Straw was used for roof-covering from the earliest times, and its use has continued to the present day: but rushes and reeds were also very common. Whatever the material, the covering was in all cases put on with some degree of art and neatness, such as we see in the work of the skilled straw-thatchers of the present day.
A better class of roof than any of the preceding was what is called in Irish slinn, namely thin boards of oak, laid and fastened so as to overlap, as in modern slated or tiled roofs. Sometimes, anticipating modern usage, they employed materials superior to any of the preceding. The Annals of Ulster record that in the year 1008, the oratory of Armagh was roofed with lead.
The thatch of ladies' greenans was sometimes covered with birds' plumage, so arranged as to form bright stripes of brown, reddish purple, and other colours: and sometimes the hoods of chariots were similarly roofed.
There were windows in the fraig or wall, and often a skylight in the roof. Glass was known among various ancient nations from the most remote period: the Celts of Britain were well acquainted with it: and from constant references to it in our oldest writings, it is obvious that it was well known to the ancient Irish. Beads and other small ornamental objects of glass, variously coloured, are constantly found in Irish pre-Christian graves and crannoges. All the objects of this kind wherever found in Ireland were formed while the material was heated to softness.
Moreover, the manufacture of these little articles was an art requiring long training and much delicate manipulative skill, for most of them are made of different-coloured glass or porcelain—blue, white, yellow, pale red, &c.—blended and moulded and beautifully striated in the manner shown imperfectly in the black-and-white figures on the opposite page. They were used for ornamentation, very often forming the heads of pins, but sometimes made into rings, or strung together for beads.
Glass drinking-vessels were known to the Irish at least as early as the sixth century; and they are frequently mentioned in the most ancient of the tales. Add to all this that the remains of a regular glass factory have been found in the county Wicklow, where great quantities of lumps of glass, chiefly of the three colours, blue, green, and white, have been—and can still be—dug up.
Glass was used in England for church windows in the seventh century; and it had been long previously in use for this purpose on the Continent: so we may conclude that the knowledge of the use of glass for windows found its way into Ireland from Gaul, Italy, and England, through missionaries and merchants. At all events glass windows are mentioned in many of the ancient Irish tales, which shows that this use of glass was familiarly known to the original writers.
There was one large door leading to the principal apartment of the dwelling-house, with smaller doors, opening externally, for the other rooms. Generally the several rooms did not communicate with each other internally. In the outer lis or rampart surrounding the homestead (for which see farther on), there was a single large door. The common Irish word for door was, and is, dorus: a single leaf of a door was comla. The knocker was a small log of wood called bas-chrann, i.e. 'hand-wood,' which lay in a niche by the door. It is everywhere mentioned in the old tales that visitors knocked with the baschrann.
In rich people's houses there was a special doorkeeper to answer knocks and admit visitors. At the bottom of the door was a tairsech or threshold. The jamb was called ursa: the lintel was for-dorus (i.e. 'on the door'). On the outside of the large door of the lis was a porch called aurduine (lit. 'front part of the dim'). Cormac's Glossary explains aurduine as a structure "at the doors of the duns, which is made by the artisans"—implying ornamentation. The lis door was always closed at night.
The door was secured on the inside either by a bolt or by a lock. We have the best evidence to show that locks were used in Ireland in very early times. Mention is made of the aradh [ara] or ladder, which must have been in constant use.
The houses were generally small, according to our idea of size. But then we must remember that, like the people of other ancient nations, the Irish had very little furniture. In the main room there was probably nothing—besides the couches—but a sufficient number of small movable seats and a large table of some sort, or perhaps a number of small tables. Moreover the standard of living was in all countries low and rude compared with what we are now accustomed to—a fact that ought to be borne in mind by the reader of the account given here of the domestic arrangements in ancient Irish houses.
Conjectural plan of a good-class house, where the family lived, ate, and slept in the one large apartment: constructed from the descriptions in Tales and Brehon Laws. (House here made quadrangular, but might be round or oval. Eight imdas, cubicles, or sleeping-places, each with one bed: some beds for one person, some for two, some for three. Four low, small tables and a number of seats are shown, all movable. Seats at ends of cubicles outside are fixed. Five supporting posts (shown by little circles): fire near middle. The openings or windows in walls are not marked; neither are the doors in doorways of house and cubicles.
In England, even so late as the time of Holinshed— sixteenth century—hardly any houses had chimneys. A big fire of logs was kindled against the wall of the principal room, the smoke from which escaped through an orifice in the roof right overhead. Here the meat was cooked, and here the family dined. In very few houses were there beds or bedrooms; and the general way of sleeping was on a pallet of straw covered with a sheet, under coverlets of various coarse materials, with a log of wood for a pillow: while the manner of eating, which is noticed farther on, was correspondingly rude. All this is described for England by a trustworthy English writer named Roberts.
We know that many of the great houses were very large. The present remains of the Banqueting-Hall of Tara measure 759 feet long and 46 feet wide: and Petrie states that it must have been originally much wider. We are told that the measurement of the hall of Emain was "fifteen feet and nine score" (195 feet): which refers to a square shape.
We may form some idea of the better class of dwellings from an enumeration, in one of the law books, of the various buildings in the homestead of a well-to-do farmer of the class bo-aire, who rented land from a chief, and whose property was chiefly in cattle. His dwelling consisted of (at least) seven different houses, each, as already observed, with a separate wall, door, and roof:—1. Dwelling-house, at least 27 feet in diameter: 2. Kitchen or cooking 3. A kiln for drying corn: 4. A barn in which corn was stored: 5. A sheep-house: 6. A calf-house: 7. A pig-sty.
These were all in one group close together; and each generally, though not always, consisted of the usual round-shaped wicker-house with conical roof: the whole group being surrounded by the lis or rath, described farther on. In all houses of the more comfortable class, the kitchen was separate from the dwelling-house and placed at the back: and there was a separate pantry for provisions. The barn was oblong and had one side quite open, with the roof supported at that side on posts.
The women had a separate apartment or a separate house in the sunniest and pleasantest part of the homestead. This was called a grianan [greenan], which signifies a summer-house: a diminutive derivative from grian, 'the sun.' The women's greenan is constantly mentioned in Irish writings. In Croghan the greenan was placed over the for dorus or lintel, as much as to say it was placed in front over the common sitting-room: and probably it occupied some such position in most houses. In great houses there was one apartment called "the House of conversation," answering to the modern “drawing-room," where the family often sat, especially to receive visitors.
Joyce, Patrick Weston. A Smaller Social History of Ireland. Longmans, Green, & Co. 1906.
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