By the beginning of the nineteenth century, over ninety-five percent of all the productive land in Ireland was in the hands of Anglo-Irish landowners. They lived in the 'big houses', some of which still exist today, resplendent within their walled estates. Many others are now only gaunt ruins silhouetted against somber Irish skies, victims of 'the troubles' in the 1920s. There is a continuing fascination with the history of the big house in Ireland. Much of this interest stems from the Anglo-Irish living in places apart, in their estates, often in remote areas of an undeveloped and hostile land. Part of the appeal is in the characters, neither wholly English nor Irish, who made up this landowning class in Ireland. However, another part, largely ignored until this study, is how many of these landowners not only met these challenges but achieved remarkable levels of self-sufficiency. It was their exploitation of technology that hugely bolstered their status and independence and enabled them to lead an exotic lifestyle in Ireland. Although much has been written regarding the social and political history of the Anglo-Irish in Ireland, little research has been conducted into the practical problems of living there. At a time when there were few roads, no railways, and sailing ships were the unreliable connection with England, existence might have been very basic indeed. Charles Carson uncovers and explains in simple terms the technologies employed, to not only make life bearable, but in some case to become a triumph over seemingly impossible odds. An appreciation of this background helps to explain the sense of status and independence that emanates from the big house in Ireland until their demise in the late twentieth century. Interdisciplinary investigative methods were used in this work. These included extensive archival research of estate papers throughout Ireland; fieldwork involving examination and photography of still-extant big house technology; and the use of published fictional and biographical big house material. Much additional insight, and suggestions for further research, resulted from visits to various big house locations. Owners, often descendants of the original families, or managers and ground staff, provided important local knowledge. Climbing amongst stored artefacts in cellars, barns, and subterranean tunnels helped to bring the past alive. Something of the ambiance of these explorations informs this book, thus helping towards an understanding of the fundamental importance of technology in underpinning the status and independence of the big house in Ireland. By examining the range, costs, and changing nature of the technologies employed, this book makes an important contribution to a deeper understanding of life in the big house in Ireland circa 1800 to circa 1930. Brief descriptions, accompanied by drawings or photographs, are employed to explain the operation, limitations, and improvements of many of the installations and techniques. These include water closets, pumps, cisterns, boilers, and firefighting equipment; open fires, hot air stoves, and central heating; walled gardens, hot walls and beds, warm air, steam, and hot water heating of glasshouses; the construction, location, stocking, and use of ice houses and ice; daylight enhancement, candle, oil, gas, and electric lighting; an optical telegraph, a church spire, engine driven equipment on the estate farm as well as mapping of bogs and their reclamation by wooden railways. Technology and the Big House in Ireland, c. 1800-c. 1930 is an important reference source for Irish study groups worldwide.

This is a history of Ireland's big houses from the post-famine years until the 1950s.

The Big House has been an element of tragedy in the course of Ireland's history and it is considered such by contemporary novelists such as Aidan Higgins and Jennifer Johnson. It has been the crucible in which two civilizations failed to melt and yet became inseparably bound together."ófrom the Introduction by Guy Fehlmann. Contents: Introduction An Historical Survey, Guy Fehlmann; The Big House in Western Ireland, Breand·n MacAodha; "Cast a Cold Eye": A Sociological Approach, Joy Rudd; Distribution, Function and Architecture, Breand·n MacAodha; The Beginnings of Big House Fiction; Maria Edgeworth: Castle Rackrent, Bernard Legros; Irish Homes in the Work of C.R. Maturin, Claude FiÈrobe; Historical Glimpses: John Banim, Bernard Escarbelt; Gerald Griffin, Michel Flot; Le Fanu's Houses, Jean Lozes; The Golden Age; George Moore's Big House Novel: A Drama in Muslin, Jean NoÎl; Joyce Cary: Castle Corner, A Big House Novel?, Jacques Emprin; Interior and Exterior: The Big House and the Irish Landscape in the Work of Elizabeth Bowen, GearÛid Cronin; Elizabeth Bowen's A World of Love, Josette Leray; The Big House in Se·n O'Faol·in's Fiction, Denis Sampson; Molly Keane, Maurice Elliot; Jennifer Johnston, Mark Mortimer; John Banville and the Subversion of the Big House Novel, GearÛid Cronin; A View from Outside; A Shadowless Castle of Treasures: Kinalty Castle in Henry Green's Loving, Fiona MacPhail; Major and Majestic: J.G. Farrell's Troubles, Fiona MacPhail; Through the Poets' Eyes; Yeats and the Big Houses, Jacqueline Genet; The "Big House" by Paul Muldoon: The Approach of the Satirist, Dominique Gauthier; The Image of the Big House in the Poetry of Derek Mahon and Tom Paulin, Caroline MacDonough.

In 1850 there were perhaps 2000 country houses in Ireland. Standing at the heart of its demesne, each Big House dominated its locality, but by the end of the 20th century, only a few hundred survived intact. No more than a handful were still in the possession of their original owners, or contained many of their original contents, including a substantial library. In some cases, this might well have been the only library in the district, though whether it was a carefully assembled collection or a haphazard accumulation of ancestral books would have varied from place to place. The National Trust in what is now Northern Ireland is responsible for most of the survivors. These collections have survived almost like time capsules, never subject to atmospheric pollution or the attentions of reforming librarians, and not heavily used in modern times. Many of their books contain the bookplates and ownership inscriptions of their long-dead owners, as well as instructions to binders, handwritten marginal notes and prices, and even the odd pressed flower; most are also in their original bindings. Together these features tell us a good deal about the tastes and interests of the people who owned them, and about the use, abuse and circulation of print across the whole of Ireland over a period of more than 400 years. Drawing on a wide range of previously untapped sources and evidence from the collections themselves, this lavishly-illustrated book is a must for anyone interested in the history of reading, collecting or country houses in Ireland.

Did you ever see a big house in the countryside and wonder who used to live in such a property? Have you ever wondered about the story behind such an old and historic house? This book reveals the story behind some of the greatest houses in Ireland. Maurice O'Keefe has interviewed the surviving members of many of the Anglo-Irish and old Irish families who lived, and in many cases still live, in these great houses. They have talked about their family histories, their links to the communities in which they are based and about the fascinating details of life in these houses. For the first time the families still living in and descendants of families that once lived in these houses speak about the ups and downs of life in Ireland from as far back as the 1600s. With previously unpublished photographs and untold stories, this is a must have book for those interested in the social history of Ireland.

Readers receive step-by-step guidance as to how to conduct their research and are alerted to some of the problems they might encounter in working with particular collections. Possible avenues for research are suggested and relevant secondary works are also recommended."--Jacket.

In recent years, the role of women in country houses and estates across Ireland and the UK has been the focus of greater attention. Chatelaines, mothers, wives, daughters, widows, sisters, housekeepers, and maids were ever-present figures in the microcosm of the country house. New research has begun to reveal the extent of their involvement in managing households and estates, influencing design, adopting public roles, championing good causes, as well as raising families and committing their thoughts to paper in literary expression. This volume of essays, many of which draw on hitherto unseen family archives, will bring new perspectives to our understanding of the country house as a place where many women often held powerful roles. Contributors include: Amy Boyinton (U Cambridge), Kerry Bristol (U Leeds), Philip Bull (La Trobe U, Melbourne), Anne Casement (ind.), Jonathan Cherry (Maynooth U), Arlene Crampsie (Maynooth U), Caroline Dakers (Central St Martins), William Fraher (U Limerick), Judith Hill (Trinity College Dublin), Edmund Joyce (Carlow IT ), Ruth Larsen (U Derby), Anna Pilz (University College Cork), Lowri Ann Rees (Bangor U), Ciar���¡n Reilly (Maynooth U), Regina Sexton (University College Cork), Brendan Twomey (Trinity College Dublin), and Fiona White (Galway-Mayo IT). [Subject: History, Women's History, Gender Studies, Archives, Home Design, Sociology, Irish Studies, British Studies]

"The Big House in the North of Ireland" explores the changing fortunes of the landed elite in the six counties that became Northern Ireland from the land war of the late 1870s to the last days of the Unionist government at Stormont in the 1960s. Purdue examines the social, economic and political challenges faced by the north's landed elite - tenant agitation, the break-up of their estates and the growing political challenge initially from Belfast's mercantile class and, eventually, from populist political movements - and determines the extent to which these undermined the foundations of their influence. She discusses the strategies adopted by the north's landed class to meet the challenges it faced and uncovers the reasons for the Big House clinging on as a social and political force in Northern Ireland long after it had ceased to hold any value in the rest of the island.

This book is a comprehensive study of the ascendancy novel from Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent (I800) through contemporary reinventions of the form. Kreilkamp argues that Irish fiction needs to be rescued from the critical assumptions underlying attacks on the historical mythologies of Yeats and the Literary Revival. Exploring the uniquely Irish dimensions of colonial and post-colonial societies, Kreilkamp charts the self-critical formulations of a gentry culture facing its extinction—more often and more successfully with comic irony than nostalgia. Kreilkamp positions the Big House novels within current debates in postcolonial criticism and theory. She argues that these fictional representations of a beleaguered society provide a complex, nuanced gaze into a hybrid colonial group that distanced itself from the self-aggrandizements of the revivalists. As she examines the gothic, revisionist, and postmodern permutations of an enduring national form, she illustrates the ways ascendancy women transformed conventions of an English domestic genre into political fiction. Her attention to Edgeworth's Irish works, the fiction of the neglected Victorian novelist Charles Lever, and the gothic forms of the Big House by Sheridan Le Fanu and Charles Maturin provide a historical context for later reformulations of the genre by Somerville and Ross, Elizabeth Bowen, Molly Keane, William Trevor, Jennifer Johnston, Aidan Higgins, and John Banville.