Photos or Info on Irish Vernacular Cottages for Final Year P

The Office of Public Works carried out a survey of thatched houses in the early to mid-1990s, under the direction of a man called Michael Higginbotham. Though never published, it was completed and bound in a number of volumes with burgundy hard covers, landscape format. I presume it’s still floating around somewhere in 51 St Stephen’s Green, the OPW head office. It had images for all the buildings recorded.

In fact, I was just checking the spelling of Mr Higginbotham’s name, and I stumbled across an old thread from Archiseek, where apparently I gave quite a similar answer to this one! https://archiseek.com/content/archive/index.php/t-5021.html

Here’s the Google search, with a few other potential leads for you: Click!

I would also recommend the Buildings of Ireland series, prepared by Duchas/DEHLG, which is on-going. The publications and website would include some vernacular buildings for all the counties surveyed thus far, though as the surveys were not comprehensive, there will be vernacular buildings in those counties that weren’t recorded. Still, it’s a good starting point: http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/

A Lost Tradition: The Nature of Architecture in Ireland
by Niall McCullough and Valerie Mulvin (Gandon Editions, Dublin/Kinsale, 1987)

Really good book – goes through the development of many different typologies of Vernacular architecture. Including cottages.

Kevin Danaher’s “Ireland’s Vernacular Architecture” (The Cultural Relations Committee of Ireland and The Mercier Press, Cork, 1975) is worth checking out.

There was an exhibition some time ago in Collins Barracks Whitewash & Thatch: Architectural Drawings 1930s & 40s here’s the link http://www.irishmuseums.org/NMI-7-W+T.doc

I remembered on my way home that I had this in a bag, and I thought it might be useful. I have no idea what it is, other than what the title says. It’s mounted on backing board, about 10″ x 14″, and could have been part of an… um, OPW exhibition… maybe? Hmmm… Regarding the pictures and text, for all I know it could be a page from the Danaher book (still haven’t managed to find a copy yet), or it could have been drawn for a specific purpose.

Anyway, here it is. Sorry I can’t be more specific with the details.

The plans are not from Danaher, ctesiphon, although they’re quite similar in style except that Danaher shows door swings. Your plan no. 1 is a direct cog from Danaher (p30) and plan no. 4 is based on Danaher (p50), although Danaher’s plan and picture here (of a farmhouse near Glencolmcille in south-west Donegal) show no back window in the right hand room (note: the thrust-out bed alcove is at the back of the house).

Danaher also references his own bibliography of Irish vernacular buildings: C O Danachair, ‘Traditional Forms of the Dwelling House in Ireland’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 102 (1972), 77-96.

Thanks, trace.

I suspect the drawings were done by Mr Higginbotham, but I’ve no way of telling.

paddyjoe- I hope you’re taking good notes!

Hey.

Thanks for all the Information to date.

Other aspects of this Final Year Project are investigating the Cultural Aspects of Thatched houses. Such as Rambling Houses, Music, Comradery between neighbours. I have not seem many publication in this respect.

Then as the title of this project is the Impact of Thatched houses on modern rural builds, I was hoping to analyse thatched houses. Such as:

Orientation of the gable to the South for the most part means Optimum Solar Gains can be got now.
Thatched roofs are a very efficient method of roofing a house, Cool in the summer, Warm in the winter.
Aesthetic qualities of these houses, they blended in seamlessly with the surroundings using natural materials.

So hopefully someone could guide me in this respect.

Thanks
Patrick

http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/Resources/ThatchinIreland/
http://www.ni-environment.gov.uk/thatch.pdf
http://www.irishthatchowners.com/
and Living Under Thatch: Vernacular Architecture in County Offaly by Barry O’Reilly (Mercier Press, Cork, 2004)

@paddyjoe9 wrote:

Other aspects of this Final Year Project are investigating the Cultural Aspects of Thatched houses. Such as Rambling Houses, Music, Comradery between neighbours. I have not seem many publication in this respect.

Then as the title of this project is the Impact of Thatched houses on modern rural builds, I was hoping to analyse thatched houses. Such as:

Orientation of the gable to the South for the most part means Optimum Solar Gains can be got now.
Thatched roofs are a very efficient method of roofing a house, Cool in the summer, Warm in the winter.
Aesthetic qualities of these houses, they blended in seamlessly with the surroundings using natural materials.

Well, one of the characteristics (nay, an a priori requirement by definition) of vernacular buildings is that they were built using materials sourced in the immediate vicinity, so their sympathy with their surroundings stems in part from the fact that they were built from those very surroundings. I’ve seen houses in Clare roofed with big slabs of Liscannor slate, for example. The type of thatch used in different regions would be particularly relevant to this point- rushes, reeds, straw, etc. The reason is probably quite simple- if it grows in a certain part of the country (and in this climate) then it’s presumably good enough to use as a building material.

Regarding your points on Optimum Solar Gains and heating/cooling efficiency, you seem to be applying modern terminology and concepts to some pretty old principles, i.e. I don’t think a builder of a mud-walled, thatched house 200 years ago would understand the terms you use, but he’d probably understand the concepts perfectly- because his dad told him about prevailing winds, and observation tells him that the sun is to the south during the day, etc. There may have been trial and error involved, but not in his or his father’s or his grandfather’s lifetime… This is part of the nature of vernacular buildings.

On the question of their impact (influence?) on modern rural architecture, I would re-frame it to ask if those rules-of-thumb are still in evidence today and, if not (as I strongly suspect), how we’ve come to forget or disregard this knowledge. I’d suggest that our belief in our ability to override natural considerations by recourse to technology is somewhere in the mix (electric lights mean daylight can be ‘manufactured’), as is the primacy of the visual sense in the modern world (we prioritise the view from the sitting room at the expense of other, more practical considerations), not to mention the culture of conspicuous consumption (or, in layman’s terms, showing off to passers-by), but you’re getting into a very big cultural-philosophical question with that line of inquiry.

The book trace recommended above might well have something on this. Kevin Danaher’s The Year In Ireland could be a good starting point for the cultural aspects you mentioned in your last post- and it, at least, is still in print. (Has his book on vernacular architecture ever been reprinted?)

As far as I can make out, it was updated, ctesiphon, as Ireland’s Traditional Houses (Bord Fáilte, Dublin, 1993 – some online references say it came out in 1991. ISBN 0-901146-12-9). Haven’t seen it myself though.

I visited the ulster folk museum outside Belfast recently and the collection of Irish cottages there might be of great help to you. The cottages were moved to the site of the museum over the past 40 years or so, and stories and knowledge of the occupiers, ways of life, etc etc. prior to that time have often been recorded. The curators said that several cottages have been visited by people who knew them in their original locations with the original occupants. I was there with an academic group and the museum staff are very keane to answer and queries. The cottages are fitted with largely 19th century furniture, turf fires burning, some have farmyards which are in use, and activities such as traditional cooking/sewing/basket making are carried out by staff in the cottages. Their are also mills/industrial/community buildings which give a picture of Irish life in the early 20th century. The fact that the cottages are occupied and that you can walk around freely and explore them inside and out heightens the impact far above that of just reading about them. They are situated along small rural roads, sitting typically in the landscape as they would have across the country. By the time you’ve visited 6 or 8 of them the picturesqueness begins to give way to the harsh clarity of the poverty seen inside. (the ever infamous situation is represented where families share a single room cottage with farm animals in order to keep warm.)

Mellon Homestead, Ulster American Folk Park Co Tyrone

This is on its original location
http://ireland.archiseek.com/buildings_ireland/tyrone/omagh/ulster_american/mellon_homestead.html

Campbell House, also Ulster American Folk Park Co Tyrone but originally from Plumbridge Co. Tyrone
http://ireland.archiseek.com/buildings_ireland/tyrone/omagh/ulster_american/campbell_house.html

Hughes Cottage, originally Co. Monaghan
http://ireland.archiseek.com/buildings_ireland/tyrone/omagh/ulster_american/hughes_house.html