The planning and use of space in Irish houses 1730-1830

Abstract

Much has been written about eighteenth- and nineteenth-century country houses, in both Ireland and Britain. One of the most important books among the wealth of information about British houses is Mark Girouard's seminal work, Life in the English country house (1978), that blends the architecture of the house (the style and the plan), with its social life. Girouard shows how the plan of the house was used by those who Hved in it, and by those who visited it. To date, however, there has been no such comprehensive study made of the subject as it relates to Ireland. In recent years much scholarship has been published by Irish writers on various aspects of the house, in both town and country, and it seems like a good time to redress that balance somewhat. By taking just one hundred years (1730 to 1830) as a time span, this thesis is an effort to gather some of this together, adding evidence gleaned from contemporary inventories and literature, and primary sources such as correspondence, diaries, novels and travellers' observations.