Search results
-Normans with the intention of funnelling trade through them from the rest of the territory they controlled (O’Brien, 1988 ). The Irish port towns thrived financially in the tower house era, in spite of difficult political circumstances. Indeed, Ireland is described as having been in ‘substantial economic recovery’ at this time ( ibid .: 25). The influx of money into Ireland's urban places and the control of this activity by a small and interrelated mercantile community explains, at least in part, a late medieval building boom that included tower houses. It also included
routes would have provided the tower house occupant with an additional, or perhaps primary, income through the levying of tolls for the use of ‘his’ routeway. Adherence was enforced by the might of the defensive-appearing structure itself. There was often overlap between the different means of broaching the nodal point: bridges in disrepair could be replaced temporarily with ferries, which were more easily tolled than bridges from a legal standpoint, until enough money had been raised to reinstate the bridge (Cooper, 2006 ). A problem with historical ferry
goes on to consider how many tower houses facilitated movement and connections along water-based routes. It is not hard to understand why control of other money-making resources was essential to tower house occupants. For example, according to the Civil survey for northern and western Tipperary there was often at least one tower house per parish, with the land held by more than one person in the majority of cases. With so small an area to support a tower house and its inhabitants, it is of no surprise that other income-generating resources
oriented towards a bridge, or a river route or a valley pass. A lack of building investment in the tower house faces that overlook rising land or less productive farmland has also been observed during the course of fieldwork. Such decisions decidedly reflect priorities, such as not to spend money on expensive architecture that nobody will appreciate. This also ties into themes of ‘conspicuous consumption’. Assessing the exterior ornamentation of castles can therefore assist us in determining the worldview of their occupants. This interpretation
in light of the evidence in the records for economic cooperation between Ireland's ethnicities, money effectively ‘greasing the wheels’ of any potential ethnic rift. When we analyse the places associated with trade between Ireland and England we can see that separate systems, or networks, existed across the Irish Sea that connected certain regions of Ireland with her neighbours. These may have continued in existence from the early Middle Ages. Hudson, in his study of the early medieval Irish Sea zone (1999), proposed that Chester and
Glenogra was until then a vibrant local centre and had the potential to be so again. It states several times that the quality of the land around was excellent and included underwood, and that the vill called ‘Creans’ by Glenogra had buildings prior to the Desmond Rebellion. This village may have been located around the medieval parish church, 260 metres to the northeast, it too described as a shell. Its rent was stated as comprising money, cattle and grains, implying a mixed agricultural economy in the area ( Desmond survey
’ (beef cattle), sheep, and seven or eight harness horses (CSPI: vol. 11, SP63/209/1, f. 131, 1601). According to sixteenth-century descriptions, Irish cattle were small and hardy (McDonald, 2016 ). But ascertaining whether tower houses were in fact used in this way is another matter (identifying animals in buildings is discussed in Gardiner ( 2000 )). Animals lived side by side with humans in lower-status medieval houses, like the earlier longhouse, and the Gaelic-Irish legal corpus indicates that some cattle could be worth significant sums of money. Drains might not