The freestanding 13th century castle halls of Ireland and Scotland 1170 -1300
Karen Dempsey
Supervisor: Professor Tadhg O’Keeffe
Funded by: IRCHSS Government of Ireland Post-Graduate Scholarship
Abstract
The freestanding 13th century castle halls of Ireland and Scotland 1170 -1300 is an extensive study of the architecture and settlement context of fully-detached thirteenth-century castle halls (including both conventional halls within castles and so-called ‘hall-houses’) of both ‘English’ and native ‘Gaelic’ construction in Ireland and Scotland.
This thesis is going to address the ‘problem’ of the hall house and the lack of understanding that surrounds the castle type. The ‘hall houses’ has become, in recent years, a topic of interest for castellologists. However this research tends to repeat the basic typological model (rectangular castle with hall at first floor level). There has been little effort engaged in a more complete understanding of the type. No extensive political, settlement or proper typological research has been carried out. Currently the grouping is very disparate with no acknowledgment to the diverse political or social status of the sites. The term ‘hall houses’ is a misnomer in itself and cannot be applied to all these buildings universally.
In this project I intend to create a comprehensive catalogue which includes a full site list, histories, original survey and a database of images. From this a more interpretative approach will be utilised to understand the meaning of the castle through social organisation, the identification of status through patterns of movement and the settlement context of the castle. The outcome of this study will be that a solid accurate traditional typological model will be created for the hall house but furthermore the castle type will be understood through its role in Anglo-Norman settlement, political status, lordly ritual and siting context. This will hopefully remove any preconceptions around this building ‘type’ that have become ensconced in Irish castle studies.
Karen Dempsey
Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Doctoral Researcher
UCD School of Archaeology