Introduction

Abstract

Introduction* Many themesjostle forattention in thisthought-provoking collection.On theone hand,whatcan be retrieved about thephysicalrealitiesof domesticlifespeaks of utility; ontheother, theunexpectedprominence ofparticular objectstellsofsymbolism and of ritualsthatdefyeasy rationalisation. A fascinationwiththeemergence of,and demarcations between,distinct privateand public sphereshas provedfertile in classifyingactivities,spaces and theircontents.Also, a stronger sense of how genderrelationships mayaccountfororbe entrenched indomesticarrangements has informed numerousrecentstudiesofdomesticity. Buildingsand theircontents have longbeen thought torelateto hierarchies, authority and power.Efforts to defineand investigate thevastterritories ofcultural history havebeena further spurtotheanalysis andre-interpretation ofa rangeofhitherto disregarded phenomenainIreland. More specificto Irelandis a sense of how practicesthere,ifnotimported, werestrongly influenced andfrequently modified bywhatwas happeningelsewhere.1 Invaders,conquerors, immigrants andvisitors all introduced variants inhousing,furnishingand habits.Trade also broughtcommoditieshitherto unknown,especially to coastal areas. Inevitably thenoveltieswerealteredby indigenousconditionsand traditions, notablythematerialsavailablenearbyforbuildingand fashioning implements .As a result,regionalvariantsin theorientation and plans of dwellings,and whattheythenaccommodated,can be traced.Partsof theisland were mostreadily accessible from,variously,the south-westand north-west of England,Wales, westernScotland,AtlanticFranceand theIberianPeninsula:each place had itsidiosyncrasies ,whichwere thentransplanted intoparticularpartsof Ireland.Already, inthefourth millennium, as JessicaSmyth (Chapter1) argues,waysofordering space werespreading intoIrelandfrom theNorthern Isles.Thereafter, syntheses andhybrids abounded.Inthisvein,RorySherlock(Chapter5) continuesthelaboriousbutimportant classification oftower-houses, andhasnoteddifferences from thoseinScotlandto whichtheIrisharemostcommonly likened.Sadly,there islittle reliableevidencebefore theseventeenth century as tohowtheywereused andfurnished. Poetsandtravellers, as RorySherlockshows,can banisha little, butonlya little, ofthedarkness.2 A readiness to adopt what had come fromoutside Ireland may reflect simpleconvenience.At thesame time,ittellsof long-standing tradeand colonisation .Ireland,althoughnota speciallypopulous orwealthymarket, nevertheless was a usefulone forproducersand merchants to address.In thesteadydiversification of theaccessoriesofdailylife,itis sometimeseasy toassumethattheconsumersdeterminedtheinnovations . But customershad to selectfromwhatwas available. Most cruciallytheirchoices werecontrolledby spendingpower.Much ofthepopulation, * doi: 10.3318/PRIAC.201 l.xi 1P.Burke,Varieties ofcultural history (Cambridge, 1997);M. Werner andB. Zimmerman, 'Beyondcomparison: Histoire Croiséeandthechallenge ofreflexivity', History andTheory 45 (2006),30-50. 2See also: T. O'KeeffeandS. Quirke, 'A houseatthebirth ofmodernity: Ightermurragh Castlein context', in J.Lyttleton andC. Rynne(eds), Plantation Ireland : settlement and material culture ,c. 1550-c.1700(Dublin, 2009),86-112. ProceedingsoftheRoyalIrishAcademyVol. 111C, xi-xxvii© 201 1 Royal IrishAcademy TobyBarnard evenafter theuse ofmoneyspread - certainly bytheseventeenth century - had little ofitto spare.3 Muchearlier, inprehistory, as Carleton Jones, OliveCareyandClareHennigar argue(Chapter 2),thebuilding ofsimpleshelters wasa co-operative activity undertaken byneighbours andkin;formoreambitiousstructures, labourservicesamongtenants andseptmembers couldbe enforced. Forspecialisttasks(maybemoreinecclesiastical thanlaycommissionsuntilthesixteenth century), heliers, glaziers,expert masonsand carpenters werepaidwages.Theirratesofpaywerestandardised, characteristically by guildsinthelarger towns.Inthisregard, urbanandrural practices wereperhapsdiverging .But clarity aboutthechronology and extent ofthesechangesis hardto achieve, sinceitis larger edifices thatleavedocumentary traces. Thus,forexample,JaneFenlon (Chapter6) is able to includein heraccountof domesticmagnificence, twoof the grandest private housesinmid-seventeenth-century Dublin(CorkHouse andanother used bytheearlofKildare). ConorLucey,thanksto advertisements, inventories and chancecomments incorrespondence, hasretrieved illuminating detailsaboutsubstantialpremisesinthelatereighteenth -century capital(Chapter7). Atthislevel,therole offashionindetermining whatwas expectedandprovidedis powerful. Yet,when(in 1794) DorotheaHerbert boaststhat theworksonherfamily home(thatofa well-to-do country parsoninthe1780s) werein'tiptopalamodestile',sheraisesthequestionsof whose notionof modishnessthisis: thatofherfamily, granderrelationsand neighbours ,whatshe had seen duringa recentstayinDublin,whatshe had readabout,or whathad been suggestedbyinterior decorators and contrivers. She hadjustreturned froma stayin Dublin.4For the laternineteenth centuryin Dublin, FrankCullen (Chapter9) isabletorelaterents towages,andso helpstoexplainwhythegapbetween theconditionsof lifefortheprospering middleclasses and thepoor widened.The relativeaffluence oftheformer groupstimulated a variety of servicesand artefacts deemed necessaryfordomesticbliss. But, as Cullen also emphasizes,the power of subjectiveconceptsabout comfort, respectability, and refinement fuelledseeminglyendlesselaborationoftheaccoutrements of domesticliving.Most recently, as Michael Pike and EmmettScanlon makeclear(Chapter12), ithas had theeffect of re-orientating thehouse,transferring theonce nondescript scullery, kitchen andback intothefocalpointof(post)modernliving. The need to provide housing that is at once affordableand conforms to the more exacting standardsof spatial segregation(as between parentsand children)and of hygiene,withindoorlavatoriesand baths,onlycomes intofocus with late nineteenth-and twentieth-century schemes, the subject of Cullen's, Mary McCarthy's (Chapter 11) and Ruth McManus's (Chapter 10) pioneering 3L.M. Cullen,'Income,socialclassesandeconomic growth inIreland andScotland, 16001900 ',inT.M. DevineandD. Dickson(eds),Irelandand Scotland,1600-1850:parallels andcontrasts ineconomic andsocialdevelopment (Edinburgh, 1983),248-60;L.M. Cullen, T.C. SmoutandA. Gibson,'Wagesandcomparative development in Ireland andScotland, 1565-1780',inR. Mitchison andP.Roebuck(eds),Economy andsociety inScotlandand Ireland, 1500-1939(Edinburgh, 1988),105-16. 4 Dorothea Herbert, Retrospections ofan outcastor thelifeofDorotheaHerbert (2 vols, London,1929-30),vol.ii,327. xii Introduction investigations.5 In thelongintervalbetweenthosepreoccupationsstarting to shape policy (and indeed whatwas erected) and theearlierperiods,thereis sometimes a tendencyto assume thatsensibilitiesand requirements remainedconstant.Until recenttimes,privacy, as...