左側パネル。 「PREVENTING COLLAPSE — Searching For Details
Narrow Escape in Dangerous Site
ROSS CASTLE came into State ownership in 1970. Over the years, work had been done to stabilise it. The northwest corner had been heavily buttressed with stone. A steel and concrete roof had been put on, and the Georgian windows had been filled in. An internal wall had been built to support the upper vault. Much of this was causing more damage.
The heavy buttressing of the northwest corner was falling away, causing cracks on either side of it, running all the way to the top of the walls. The east wall was falling outwards. The steel beams holding the roof up had almost rusted away, and the upper vault was collapsing. In fact, the building was about to fall down.
Raking shores were used to support three of the walls on the outside (see main photo), fixed to a steel frame inside. All cracks in the building were constantly monitored, but not all the dangers were visible. On two occasions, staff narrowly escaped injury when large sections of apparently sound masonry collapsed.
Vital Traces Survive
The spiral staircase had survived intact, with the doors to each floor (see photo) still in
place. From the surviving foundations and close inspection of the inner faces of the walls,
it was possible to accurately reconstruct the internal walls. This greatly preserved the structural integrity of the building. On the south wall, the curved outline of the lower vault survived, sothat it too could be accurately replaced.
With the lower floor greatly strengthened, the buttress against the northeast corner was
removed. This revealed that the rock outcrop on which the castle sat had been cut away
when a house was built here in the 1800s. When the house was demolished, the corner hadbegun to slip. A steel and concrete 'corset' was inserted to prevent further movement
(frozen into place).
Enough traces were discovered to show the exact positions of missing windows. It was thusclear that these were identical to surviving windows.」
右側パネル。 「CAREFUL RESTORATION — Learning Medieval Techniques Matching Ancient Materials
What started as a limited project to conserve and repair the castle, developed into full restoration. The later stages were greatly assisted by EU funding. The restored castle was opened to the public in 1993.
Careful study of the surviving building meant that there was very little guess work involved in the reconstruction. The same was true of materials. The original mortar and plasters were carefully analysed. The plaster had been applied in several layers, all but the last strengthened with cow hair to prevent it from cracking. This was difficul t to come by, but faithfully reproduced (see photo on left).
Craftsmen learned how to weave wicker ‘centring’ (see photo on left) to rebuild the vaults accurately. Wicker mats were woven in place, and curved to the shape of the arch. On top of these, the stones of the arch were bedded in mortar. Trial pieces of wicker were pressed into sand, to check that the pattern matched fragments of the original.」
During the military occupation of Ross Castle the interior was altered to create bigger rooms. The lower stone vault was removed. The internal walls were removed to create one large room on each floor. In the east wall, six Georgian sash windows were inserted. All these changes had seriously weakened the structure.
When the military left in 1825, it was returned to the Earl of Kenmare. He made it into a decorative feature in the landscape, a venerable ruin with the lake lapping at its feet, surrounded by wild mountains. Generations of tourists have come in jaunting cars to admire the result.
With its roof removed, the weakened building was exposed to the weather. Beneath a
created more problems. By the time it came into State ownership in 1970, the building was dangerously unstable.
Changing Ways of Seeing The Castle Even before the castle ceased to be a military barracks, it appears as a focal pointin romantic illustrations of Killarney. Many of these representations are very inaccurate.
Castle. Thebuilding itself was treated in the same way. When it was returned to the Earl of Kenmare, he did not wish to conserve it as a monument, indeed he had the roof taken off to avoid rates. He did,however, want it to 'look right'. The functional block of the barracks (which you are in)did not fit in, so he had it changed into a mock medieval ruin. The windows were reducedto narrow arrow loops.
Approaches to the treatment ofancient buildings have changed over the years. In the 1900s, many of our medieval buildings were very heavily restored and much of the original fabric was lost. Today we treat the fabric as a document of the past, conserving as much of it as possible. Restoration is always problematic, because old buildingsbecome what they are through continual change. To what point in the story of a building do you restore it?
Ross Castle became a vital element in the landscape of Killarney. This influenced the intervention that was undertaken to prevent it from falling down. In the process, a remarkable amount of evidence for the original form of the building was recorded. Over a number of years, the project evolved into the restoration you see today.」
「DRAWN AFTER THE QVICKE(生き写しに描かれた または そのまま描かれた)」 アイルランドの「傭兵歩兵カーン(Kern または Cearnaigh)」の様子が描かれているのだ と。 ※"QVICKE" は「QUICK(生者・現実のもの)」の古綴り と。 「Drawing from the 1600s of Kern or Cearnaigh.
These were bands of lightly armed mercenary foot soldiers.
They went barefoot and carried Irish swords
and the Irish scian or dagger.
Reproduced courtesy of The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.」
1594年に描かれた「サー・トーマス・リー(Sir Thomas Lee)の肖像画」。 彼はアイルランドの傭兵部隊「カーン(Kern)」の総指揮官であった。
「SIR THOMAS LEE
CAPTAIN GENERAL OF THE KERN
Marcus Gheeraerts, 1594
Lee, an English officer, is shown bare legged like his men and carrying an Irish lance. English officials were worried that servants of the Crown would ‘lapse into barbarism’ by adopting Gaelic ways.
「1700s With the barracks attached to the south wall」 【南側の壁に兵舎が接続された1700年代)】
「GAELIC ORDER PASSES
CASTLE BECOMES A BARRACKS
The Brownes Recover Estates
WITH THE DEFEAT OF James II, most of the old Gaelic aristocrats lost everything. Many fled to Spain and France. An Act of the Irish Parliament in 1717 assigned Ross Castle for use 'as a garrison forever'. The Brownes’ house was demolished and the barracks you are now in was built. Backed by a network of such barracks, central authority and the rule of English law were established throughout Ireland.
When Nicholas Browne died in exile in 1720, the family managed yet another come back. His son Valentine (see picture left) recovered the estate with the sponsorship of his Protestant relatives, the Butlers of Kilkenny. He also received a pension of £100 in compensation for the loss of his house attached to the castle. When the military left in 1825, it was restored to his descendant, the Earl of Kenmare.
By now, the castle was weakened by alterations and in poor condition. The Earl had the roofs removed to avoid taxes. He also disguised the barracks as a medieval ruin, by narrowing the windows to mock arrow loops. A symbol of power in the landscape was transformed into a romantic ruin. It became an icon of the tourism that has thrived in Killarney since the 1750s. It remained in the family until the death of the last Earl of Kenmare in 1956.
Five Hundred Years Of Continuity
The Brownes managed to cling on to their lands, in unbroken succession, for 500 years. Remaining Catholics, they survived the campaigns against Catholic land ownership in the 1600s and 1700s, becoming Earls of Kenmare at the time of the Act of Union in 1800. They continued to prosper, playing an important role in the development of Killarney.
A letter, written by Sir Thomas Browne in 1757, reveals the family's sense of historical continuity. He writes of lands to be leased at Gorravullane:
“besides a small part let to O Donoghue of Ross in charity to help maintain him.”
The O'Donoghues of Ross had lost everything in 1583, yet almost two hundred years later, they were still acknowledged by the Brownes.」
「COLONISATION CONTINUES Brownes Prosper but Join Jacobites
Surviving Difficult Times
The story of the 1600s in Ireland is of campaigns of land seizure against Catholic landowners and their struggle to survive. The resettlement of seized lands by Protestant immigrants from Britain created a lasting bitterness.
The Brownes avoided the conflict and prospered. In 1620 they were granted a patent to their lands by King James I (detail reproduced here). On the other hand, they continued to intermarry with the MacCarthys and other Gaelic aristocrats, at some point becoming Catholics.
In 1652, Cromwellian forces took Ross Castle and seized the lands of the 14-year-old Sir Valentine Browne. As an innocent Catholic Royalist, he was given back his estate after the restoration of the monarchy.
Sir Valentine was made Viscount Kenmare for his service to King James II as Privy Counsellor. When James was defeated in the 1690s, Valentine and his son, Nicholas, were declared traitors and the estate was seized once more. During the fighting, the castle was taken over as a military barracks, which it remained for over a century.
The Backdrop of Colonisation and Rebellion
As the plantations progressed, the divisions in Ireland became increasingly defined by religion. With the Restoration of the Monarchy, the hopes of Catholic landowners were raised, only to be dashed when James II was defeated by William of Orange in the 1690s.
Success and Seizures
In the Browne family, three Sir Valentines succeeded one another in the 17th century. The first two married two MacCarthy sisters, Sheely and Mary, daughters of Viscount Muskerry.
It was the third Sir Valentine who lost the estate to the Cromwellians in 1652. He was probably not here at the time, but in France where he was educated. It happened when Irish forces under his uncle, Lord Muskerry, retreated to Ross Castle after a battle at Knocknriclashy in Cork. Muskerry surrendered when the Cromwellians brought artillery across Lough Leane by boat. This allegedly fulfilled a local legend that Ross Castle would never be taken ‘until a ship should swim on the lake’.」
The Munster Plantation did not go according to plan. The ‘Seignories’ held by Undertakers were made up of scattered parcels of land, and the settlers were few and isolated. Many Catholic landowners managed to recover their lands in the courts.
The Brownes’ claim to Ross Castle and the O’Donoghue Lands was contested by the MacCarthys, who successfully appealed to the Queen. Browne arranged for his son Nicholas to lease back the estate and to marry MacCarthy’s daughter and sole heir. In the event, she married her cousin Florence MacCarthy. The tussle between the families lasted for generations.
When the plantation collapsed in 1598, Nicholas Browne’s house was occupied by Florence MacCarthy. At the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, the tide was turned. Sir Nicholas Browne returned from the battle and evicted MacCarthy.
Plantation Troubles
MANY SEIGNORIES were so fragmented, that Undertakers had difficulty working out which land was theirs. Worse still, officials soon realised that there was not enough land to go around. The survey, which Browne had worked on, failed to distinguish between lands where the Desmonds received payments from the crown in the Gaelic manner and those they owned under English law. Only the latter could be seized. This led to many Gaelic landowners winning back their lands in the courts.
The Struggle for Ross in Courts, Beds, and Battlefields
QUEEN ELIZABETH I accepted title claims to the O’Donoghue estate by rights of overtantry. Coll Donagh MacCarthy More, the Earl of Clancar, A deal was brokered in Court, that Clancar would mortgage the estate to Browne’s son Nicholas, who would then marry the Earl’s daughter and sole heir. To keep the lands in the family, however, the Earl later secretly married his daughter to her cousin, Florence MacCarthy. The English settlers in the area harassed Florence MacCarthy and made sure he never had enough money to pay off the mortgage. In 1598, the Brownes obtained a grant from the Queen to lands described as “late in the tenure of Rory O’Donochue alias O’Dono more”.
Sir Nicholas secured his position by marrying Sheely O’Sullivan, daughter of the clan chieftain of Sullivan Beare. When Nicholas returned after the Battle of Kinsale, Munster was in ruins and much of the population starving. The plantation effort had been broken by the settlers’ individual efforts than by central planning.」
By the late 1500s, the O'Donoghues of Ross were subject to the 'Old English' Earls of Desmond, who controlled much of Munster. They remained Catholic after the Reformation and had connections with England's enemies in Spain. Queen Elizabeth I was determined to break them.
The Earl of Desmond was provoked into rebellion in 1579 and eventually defeated. Ruairidhe O'Donoghue of Ross Castle joined the rebellion and was killed in 1583. Ross Castle and the O'Donoghue lands were seized along with the lands of Desmond.
The Crown planned to create a Protestant bulwark against Spain by ‘planting’ Munster with English settlers. The ‘Munster Plantation’ was led by well-known figures such as Sir Walter Raleigh. These ‘Undertakers’ undertook to populate the land with English tenants.
Ross Castle and the O'Donoghue lands came into the hands of Sir Valentine Browne. He had been sent to Munster in 1585, as one of the Crown Surveyors, to plan the plantation.
The Big Plan
Following his survey, Sir Valentine Browne declared that 574,645 acres were available for settlement, in counties Cork, Kerry and Limerick. Implying that there was now plenty of room for settlers, he reported that:
"The towns and villages are ruined and not one out of thirty persons left
and those for the most part starvelings"
The ‘Undertakers’, such as Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Christopher Hatton, were to receive ‘Seignories’ of 12,000 acres (4856 hectares) of good land. Of this they were to occupy 1000 acres (405 hectares) for themselves. The rest they were to rent out, according to a detailed plan (see seignory plan down left), which included building villages for their tenants.It envisaged that 11,375 settlers would establish 2,375 English households. In the event the seignories varied considerably. The Queen’s then favourite, Sir Walter Raleigh, was granted an enormous estate of 42,000 acres.
Sir Valentine Browne was allotted lands near Dingle and Killorglin, but swapped these for the O’Donoghue lands. He was a powerful figure, with a commission to lease all crown land in Munster and 120 horse to enforce order. Weaknesses in the survey he had worked on, however, were to create problems for him and for the entire plantation.」
Ross Castle was built by the O’Donoghues in the mid 1400s.
It reflects the troubled times when it was built. As you travel through the Irish countryside you will see the ruins of many of these ‘Tower Houses’. Up to 3,500 were built in the 1400s and 1500s.
For two hundred and fifty years, the history of Ross Castle closely reflected the wider current of Irish history. It is a story of England’s struggle for control over the lordships in Ireland.
What Are Tower Houses?
They are rectangular defensive towers, with stepped battlements. The windows on the lower floors are narrow defensive slits or ‘arrow loops’. Tower Houses often have projecting machicolations overhanging the corners or the door, allowing defenders to fire straight down. The photograph shows the two machicolations here, at opposite corners. These were added fifty years after the castle was first built and were fitted with gun loops.
On the inside, stone vaults over the basement and under the upper floor protected against fire. The main room, or hall, was located on the top floor, where it was safe to have larger windows.
Many Tower Houses were surrounded by an outer defensive wall. This enclosure, or bawn, probably protected livestock as well as outbuildings. In the photograph you can see the sections of bawn wall that survives here and the two corner towers.
Where And Why Were They Built?
Most are found in areas where central authority was weak during the 1400s and 1500s.
Constant skirmishing between the great lords often took the form of cattle raiding.
The lesser chieftains took the brunt of this and built tower houses to protect themselves.
They in turn raided their neighbours when they could. The O'Donoghues of Ross Castle
were no exception, a document from 1567 tells us that:
"Lord Roche complained to the MacCarthy Mor that the O'Donoghue Mor and others,
with 6 or 7 banners displayed had taken 1500 cattle, 7000 sheep and had burned his corn."
What Is The Main Difference Between Tower Houses And Other Castles?
Tower Houses are quite varied. Because they were built for local conflicts, defence
was compromised for convenience. For example, the entrance door is on the ground floor.In earlier castles it was on the first floor, where it was harder to attack, but more awkwardfor everyday use. The surviving section of the bawn wall here has impressive looking corner towers,but the gate itself is very simple, as you can see in the photograph—in earlier castles an outer tower or “barbican” would have defended such a gate.
The word bawn is derived from the Irish bábhún, meaning a cattle fort. In troubled times,it is safer to defend cattle than field crops. This may have caused an increase in stock farmingand a decrease in tillage in this period.」
IN OUR MODEL we are trying to give some idea of how the O’Donoghues lived in Ross Castle in the 1500s.
By modern standards it was extremely cramped. There was little privacy, even for t he Lord. It was also damp and smelly.
Some first-hand accounts survive. In 1644, Boullaye le Gouz from France wrote:
‘The castles of the nobility consist of four walls extremely high... square towers without windows,or at least having small apertures as to give no more light than a prison. They have little furniture ...put rushes a foot deep on their floors and on their windows, and many ornament their ceilings with branches’
The fact that so many people needed to protect themselves by living in tower houses, tells us that life was very tough.
An agent of Phillip II of Spain reported:
‘Every petty gentleman lives in a stone tower, where he gathers into his service all the rascals of the neighbourhood
(and of these towers there are an infinite number)’
In his account of travels in Ireland in the 1600s, Luke Gernon gives a more positive account of Irish hospitality:
‘We are come to the castle al...ady. The castles are built very strong with narrow stayres for security.The hall is in the uppermost room, let us go up, you shall not come down agayne till tomorrow...you shall be presented with all the drinks in the house... you must not refuse it.
The fyre is prepared in the middle of the hall where you may solace yourself till supper time,you shall not want sacke (wine) and tobacco.
By this time the table is spread and plentifully furnished with a variety of meates...
they feast together with great jollity and healths around; towards the middle of the supper the harper begins to tune and singeth Irish rymes of auncient making...’」
The Hall was located at the top of the castle. This was the safest place, high above the ground and at the top of the narrow spiral staircase. This room would be used for all grand occasions.
Second Floor
This was the main bedroom. There was little privacy in a tower house. Not only the lord would have slept here, but most of his family and many of their servants.
First Floor
The main room on this floor was a parlour for domestic use.
Ground Floor
The ground floor was often used for storage, but the large fireplace here shows that it was also used for living in. The guards and servants probably cooked their food on this fire.
A MACHICOLATION overhangs the top left hand corner of this wall, allowing defenders to fire down on attackers from the roof level wall walk. The two machicolations, at opposite corners, were added about fifty years after the castle was built. As well as protecting the base of the walls, they were fitted with gun loops, providing wider cover.
At the top of this wall is the largest window in the castle, lighting the hall. The hall is so high up, that it was safe to insert a large window here, allowing in more light. Lower down, the windows are reduced to narrow arrow loops.
At the bottom left of the wall is the end of the garderobe (toilet) chute, which runs down the inside of the wall from the first floor.」
At the top of the north wall is a heavy wooden ‘shutter’, hung from stone brackets. This hinged outwards, protecting defenders on the roof while they fired on attackers at the door below. This is a unique feature in Ireland, though known from castles in Europe.
The larger windows in this wall were inserted in the 1500s.」
ROSS城(ロス城)付近に設置された観光案内板で、「Ciar's Quest(キアの冒険)」という 自然探索プログラムを紹介していた。 「Download the free Ciar’s Quest app, seek special symbols on the marked trail and help Ciar on his quest to find iconic Kerry wildlife & hidden gems.」 【無料の “Ciar’s Quest” アプリをダウンロードして、指定されたトレイル上の特別なシンボルを 探し、キアと一緒にケリー州の象徴的な野生動物や隠された名所を発見しよう!】と。