Irish Cottage

Irish Cottage History... more

by Fineartist Ellen

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Price

Not Specified

Dimensions

20.000 x 16.000 x 0.050 inches

Title

Irish Cottage

Artist

Fineartist Ellen

Medium

Painting - Oil On Canvas

Description

Irish Cottage History


Although it seems cottages have been around forever, they are a relatively recent occurrence dating back to around the 1700’s. Prior to that, our ancestors lived in round hut style dwellings built of wattle and daub, these dwellings would be built together in a community and surrounded by a ‘moat’ type defense mechanism. The remains of many of these settlements can be seen today – although they are commonly referred as fairy forts and arouse many superstitious tales. Another form of these dwellings were the Crannóg’s which were similar structures built on stilts in a lake, again this would have been a defence mechanism. Fantastic examples of these dwellings can be found at Craggaunowen – the Living Past Experience at Killmurray, Sixmilebridge, Co. Clare.

It is believed that cottages evolved as advancing building techniques employed for the larger estate houses trickled down through the laborers dwellings. The materials used varied from region to region as they would generally be sourced within a 5 mile radius. The only method of transport would be a donkey or ox and cart. Stone would predominantly be used in coastal and rocky areas, muddy clay in the midlands and even turf in boggy areas. Cottages literally grew out of the landscape that surrounded them.

Where a few cottages were located together the community became known as a Clachán – a type of farming collective. The surrounding land within a clachán was divided up amongst the inhabitants in scattered plots of good, medium and bad grazing land – this was known as the Rundel System. A similar system of ‘commonage’ still exists today where no one farmer owns the land but several maintain grazing rights.

Uploaded

February 21st, 2012