The Development of the Irish Vernacular Dwelling House

The Development of the Irish Vernacular Dwelling House

By Liam Loftus

In Ireland there is a distinct tradition of vernacular building styles. Aalen (1966) believes that “innovations in Ireland, are usually absorbed into the traditional patterns, and if the changes are more immediately apparent it is the continuity which is more fundamental” (p.50). Although development proceeded from one basic house form, there are many regional variations within the basic form. Factors such as climate and availability of materials dictated the nature of house development. Likewise, the introduction of new and practical innovations as well as the gradual rise in domestic comfort had a major impact on the basic plan form. The evolution of these features is visible in present day vernacular houses.

According to O’Reilly (1991), the term ‘vernacular’ applies to buildings “built of locallyexploited materials in accordance with patterns handed down by non-written means” (p.24).

Vernacular houses are defined by the absence of a formal plan, have small irregular windows and are generally one storey high, one room wide and linear in form. O’Danachair (1972) believes that the Irish vernacular building tradition comprises of a limited number of simple forms. Houses are generally “a simple rectangle with one side pierced by a doorway and with a hearth lying free and unprotected in the middle of the floor” (p.79). There is however, considerable local variation within the general type. House types vary subtly from one region to another in response to local conditions. The essential form however remains the same.

According to Aalen (1966), the classification of vernacular housing is “based primarily upon the location of the hearth in the building” (p.47). Two basic plan types can be identified that are based on the location of the main entrance door relative to the main hearth. These are central-hearth house and gable-hearth house. They have a distinct geographical distribution within the country as central hearths tend to predominate in the south-east whereas houses with hearths on the gables are more typical of the west or north-west. In the central-heath type “the

entrance door leads in directly to the hearth which is situated about the centre of the house” (O’Danachair, 1972, p.81). Evans (2000) suggests that round houses may have contributed to the development of “the central hearth and the hipped roof” (p.43). Aalen (1966) believes that this centralhearth plan may have been “structurally derived from a primitive hearth lying open in the house at an appreciable distance from the end wall” (p.47).

Direct-entry houses such as, byre-dwellings are a particular feature of the west of Ireland.

O’Danachair (1972) describes them as long structures, consisting of a “single compartment, with the hearth at the middle of one end wall, and about two thirds of the length of the house from the fire two doors set in the side walls directly opposite to each other” (p.81). These doors were used to regulate the draught for the open hearth and the back door tended to go out of use after the introduction of the chimney. In the east, houses that had one entrance door at the hearth tended to be ‘lobby-entry’ in plan. A draught screen of stone or mud was built to shelter the hearth and contained a spy-hole or entry hole.

Danaher (1938) suggests that the distinct geographic distribution of these two house-types may be the result of “the materials used in building them” (p.227). In many regions the availability of materials often dictated developments. For example the scarcity of timbers often meant roof spans were inevitably small, and subsequently house expansion was limited to length rather than width. One solution to this problem is the bed outshot or cailleach, a common feature of many direct-entry houses in the west. It was formed by the projection of one of the side-walls at the

chimney-end of the kitchen and was built to facilitate a small bed. This gave a narrow room additional width by the hearth, where it was most needed.

In many parts of the country where stone was not readily available, walls were often made of clay. These walls were often very thick for the purpose of insulation and Fig. 4 – Hip-roofed vernacular house from Co. Wexford

had a pronounced sloping batter to provide

extra stability. The use of hip or gable roofs was largely dependant upon the type of materials used in the walls. In clay or mud houses, the roof was typically thatched at the gable or hipped, because it was difficult to build the walls above six feet high. Aalen (1966) suggests that a good technical reason for retaining the hipped roof in the east is that “unless the thrust of the roof was spread on all four mud walls the house might collapse inwards” (p.57). Stone gables on the other hand could withstand the strong gales of the Atlantic coast which may account for their present day distribution. It was also possible to erect the hearth nearer the gable wall in a stone house without risk of fire, whereas in a clay house the hearth needed to be in the centre.

The selection of materials for thatching was often in response to local climates and conditions. This resulted in the development Fig. 5 – Gable-roofed Vernacular house from Co. Galway

of distinct regional thatching-styles. In the east of the country where the weather was milder, the thatch is taken down over the gable walls to form a steep hip which served to insulate the house more efficiently. Scallops were often used to pin the thatch to the roof and wheaten or barley straw was commonly used for thatching. Hipped-roofs are common where wind speeds were lower and were generally unsuited to the stormy coasts of the north and west. In these areas the thatched roof

was held down by ropes and trimmed flush with the eaves. Roped thatch in general seems to be characteristic of the Atlantic seaboard where straw ropes were “run in both directions to make a complete network” (Evans, 2000, p.52). The side walls were taken up as gables to withstand strong gales and the thatch was firmly held in place with

Fig. 6 – The Pegged Method

stone and mortar bargeboards. On the Antrim coast ropes were secured using the pegged method, however in Donegal and Mayo ropes tied to small boulders had “the advantage over the pinned ropes in that it was simpler to keep the ropes taut” (Evans, 2000, p.54). Many roofs along the west coast are rounded at the ridge to provide extra protection from the strong winds.

In vernacular housing, the hearth was the social and functional centre of the house and it is for this reason that Danaher (1938) believes that the introduction of the chimney and the subsequent relocation of the hearth was an “essential element in the evolution of the house” (p.227). Over time the fire came “to be placed against the gable or, in the central chimney house, against a partition wall” (Evans, Fig. 7 – Three west-coast thatching methods

2000, p.62-3). In the central-hearth plan, the hearth

remained in the middle of the house but had a protection built around it, whereas in the gable-hearth plan the hearth was moved to one end of the house. In both cases “the further development of the hearth was toward the provision of a chimney” (O’Danachair, 1972, p.79). The earliest chimney flues consisted of wattle canopies that rested on a strong horizontal beam running across the house

from wall to wall. These substantially altered the internal division of the house plan and resulted in the formation of a new room behind the hearth.

The gable roof, with its widespread adoption in the west of Ireland, further developed the vernacular house form. For Aalen (1966), it is very common in the west “for the dwellings to be gable-ended but to have the main hearth not at the end of the house but separated from the gable wall by a small room” (p.48). He believes that this room is “the result of internal subdivision rather than an accretion” (p.54), does not represent a later addition to the gable-end of the house, but rather, that it may be a remnant of the central-hearth house plan. Aalen (1966) believes therefore that gable-ended housing styles are a recent introduction to the west and that one house-type exists in Irish vernacular architecture, that is, a hip-ended house with a central hearth “which has evolved rather differently in the western and eastern portions of the country” (p.58). O’Reilly (1991) statement that “gabled roofs seem to be later than many hipped roofs” (p.26) supports Aalen’s claim and subsequently implies that the house-type distributed in the east of the country may contain more primitive features than the west.

If this is true then there may be fundamentally only one house-type in Irish vernacular architecture. This basic house-type was invariably simple in form despite many regional variations.

Aalen (1966) belief that the territorial division “between gable-hearth and hip-ended, central-hearth houses” appears to be of relatively recent establishment (p.58) implies that the vernacular houses of the east may be shown to preserve more primitive features than in the west. The economic prosperity of the east may have made radical improvements to dwellings unnecessary, whereas the poorer conditions of the west may have driven the need for the widespread improvements of existing structures. Despite the variation of features within different house-types, Evans (2000) asserts that overall, vernacular houses “show the most intimate relationship between building materials and techniques and types of thatch” (p.47-8). Their form was dictated by the nature of their environment and consequently their development was a gradual and practical process.

Bibliography

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Images

Fig. 1 – http://knol.google.com/k/a-discussion-of-the-main-developments-in-ireland-s-vernacular-housing-in-the# Fig. 2 – http://knol.google.com/k/a-discussion-of-the-main-developments-in-ireland-s-vernacular-housing-in-the# Fig. 3 – http://knol.google.com/k/a-discussion-of-the-main-developments-in-ireland-s-vernacular-housing-in-the# Fig. 7 – Evans, E.E. 2000, Irish Folk Ways, Dover Publications Inc., New York.