Dick Clark: Early Irish Homes

Main Source: NUI Galway

Little remains of early Irish housing, although there are enough records of construct some statements concerning its design and use.

Two fairly local sites at Sandleford, Coleraine (Ring Fort) and Fair Head lakes (Crannog) offer first hand experience of these constructions.

Perhaps just as important, are the awe-inspiring vistas and the sense of being in another time experienced on these sites selected by our forebearers so long ago.

Houses were often located within a circular settlement or fort, with a ditch to protect them from robbers and wild animals.

Some people lived on artificial islands in the middle of lakes and bogs and these forts were known as 'crannogs'.

Early Irish housing corresponded with the settlement patterns of the inhabitants of the country.

The majority lived in circular huts constructed of wood or wickerwork, with the spaces between woven with saplings or twigs and covered with sods, clay or lime.

The roof was thatched with straw or rushes. Stone was used in construction for the houses of chieftains or nobility.

The clay from ditches was thrown up on the inside, creating a raised central area, where the house or houses would be built. Some 30 - 40,000 of these forts, which ranged in size from 40 feet to 300 feet in diameter, can be seen today, and are variously described as lios, rath, dun (for a king), caiseal (where surrounded by stones), etc.

Inside the circular houses there was only one room where the family ate, slept and lived, with a fire in the centre. In many of these forts there were underground rooms (known as subterrains) sonstructed with stones without mortar, and these were used (it is believed) to stop food and protect family members during attack

It should be remembered that, some of the earliest 'housing' is likely to have utilised natural formations in rocks, hills, river banks, dunes etc.

These 'souterrains' were likely to have been augmented with stone or wooden doorways.

Numerous examples can be experienced locally although some of these are protected by barriers and gates.

One outstanding example, known as the Causeway School Souterrain is built into the side of a river bank and perfectly lined with rounded dolerite boulders. It has at least three 'chambers' with very narrow connections not suitable for most 21st century body shapes!

It appears to have been used well into the second millennium, possibly as a refuge from marauding gangs or seafarers: vikings, possibly

It was "mapped" by local historians John Logan and Maurice Todd in the late 80s.

They tell the story of a mapping day: while curled up in the third, least accessible chamber, the ground rumbled loudly.

Worried that an earth slip or similar was happening, they scrambled out, leaving everything behind them.

On the outside it became clear that their 'earth tremor' had been nothing more than a heard of frisky young bullocks just put out onto the first grass.

In the models pictured here, it can be seen that as well as the accuracy of materials and structures, Dick Clark has captured the context and landscape beautifully, giving the viewer quite an authentic experience of life in early Ireland.