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 locally-

exploited 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 central-

hearth 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

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

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

Fig. 4 – Hip-roofed vernacular house from Co. Wexford

Fig. 5 – Gable-roofed Vernacular house from Co. Galway

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

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,

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

Fig. 6 – The Pegged Method

Fig. 7 – Three west-coast thatching methods

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.

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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.