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| Image © Google Maps |
Unlike
the UK, where medieval houses are plentiful, we have relatively few
pre-18th century houses in Ireland. There are castles dating back to
medieval times, but there are few, if any, "ordinary" houses from the
medieval period, as we would think of a house today. However, fortified
tower houses exist. One probable reason is that there was no substantial
middle class who could afford "proper" houses, built from timber or
brick and most people were poor and lived in mud cabins. Or maybe the
climate was hostile to the half-timbered houses like those that still
exist in the UK (if they even existed here), and they decayed over the
centuries. Most of the houses in the country date no further back than
the Georgian era, which extended from 1714 to 1837. There are some
examples of Queen Anne style architecture, such as the Red House in
Youghal, Marsh's Library in Dublin and The Rubrics in Trinity College.
These were built in the 1710s and have a distinctive "doll's house"
appearance. A few Tudor/Elizabethan-era buildings exist, such as Rothe House in
Kilkenny; Ormond Castle, a manor house in Carrick-on-Suir; and Myrtle
Grove, Sir Walter Raleigh's home in Youghal. It's possible also that
some houses were later "Georgianified", their older fabric concealed
beneath a more modern facade. That's the case with some of the so-called
"Dutch Billys" in Dublin, a pre-Georgian architectural style brought by
the Huguenots, Protestants who fled persecution in France around the
end of the 17th century. So to cut a long story short, I came across
this some time ago. I think it was Colm Moriarty, a Wexford-based
archaeologist who mentioned the street in New Ross in a social media
post. The facades at the front are plain-rendered, but the back of the
terrace of houses reveal the medieval origin of at least one of the
buildings.
Google Maps link to Chapel Lane in New Ross here