Cochrane, R. “Abbey Knockmoy, County Galway: Notes on theBuildings and ‘Frescoes’.” JRSAI 34 (1904): 244–253.
Cochrane, R. “The Frescoes, Abbey Knockmoy. County Galway.”JRSAI 34 (1905): 419–420.
Crawford, H. S. “Mural Paintings and Inscriptions at KnockmoyAbbey.” JRSAI 49 (1919): 25–34.
Morton, K. “Medieval Wall Paintings at Ardamullivan.” In IrishArts Review Yearbook 2002, vol. 18 (2001): 104–113.
Morton, K. “Irish Medieval Wall Painting.” In Medieval Ireland:The Barryscourt Lectures I-X. Kinsale: Gandon Editions,2004, pp. 312–349.
Westropp, T. J. 1911. “Clare Island Survey: history and archae-ology.” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 31 (1911–15),section 1, part 2, 1–78.
See also Abbeys; Castles; Iconography
WALLED TOWNSThere were four major phases of town foundation inmedieval Ireland, and these follow one another inroughly chronological order: first, “monastic” towns;second, Scandinavian towns; third, Anglo-Normantowns; and fourth, Gaelic towns of the late middleages.
“Monastic” towns and Scandinavian towns devel-oped in the tenth century, although both had earlierorigins. From the late seventh century onward someecclesiastical settlements performed the urban func-tions of harbors, trading places, and centers of iron-working and craft production, while in the ninth centurythe Viking invaders established permanent settle-ments at sites such as Dublin, which are described inthe annals as longphoirt (ship fortresses). Nonetheless,
little is known about these early settlements, and schol-ars are now agreed that towns in the sense of nucleated,densely populated centers, whose inhabitants were notengaged in primary production, are a feature of thetenth century and later.
The group of five Scandinavian port towns (Dublin,Wexford, Waterford, Cork, and Limerick) established,or in some cases re-established, between 914 and 922are important in this regard. Of these Dublin is the bestknown, and excavations at Fishamble Street revealedan organized urban layout from around 925, when thesettlement was first enclosed by an earthen bank. Aboutthe middle of the tenth century the embankment wasraised and an external ditch added, while around theyear 1000 the earthen defenses were enlarged andcrowned by a post-and-wattle fence, later replaced bya stave palisade. These were the defenses that wit-nessed the battle of Clontarf in 1014. A stone wall wasbuilt around 1100 and endured until the Anglo-Normaninvasion, although the town had acquired extramuralsuburbs by that time. Within the defenses virtually allof the buildings were of wood and were constructed ofpost-and-wattle. The remains of over 200 houses havebeen excavated, and the town was essentially the homeof craftsmen and traders. Dublin’s trading connectionswere extensive, and imported goods included silksfrom Byzantium and silver from the Arab world. Theincreasing status of the Dubliners and their identity astownspeople, distinct from others, is evidenced by areference to them in 1127 as burgesses (burgenses).The archaeological evidence from Waterford is secondonly to that of Dublin. The same house types are evi-denced, and they have also been discovered in Wexfordand Cork, leading to the recognition that Hiberno-Scandinavian towns had a distinctive physical identity.Three houses of mid-twelfth century date have beenexcavated on the site of King John’s Castle, Limerick.
Ecclesiastical settlements were enclosed by rampartsfrom at least the seventh century, but it is not until theeleventh and twelfth centuries that these can bedescribed as defenses. In 1103, Armagh resisted a week-long siege, while the surviving twelfth-century gate-house at Glendalough suggests that it was also defended.
The Anglo-Normans founded some fifty new townsand established the urban network that still enduresover much of eastern and southern Ireland. Althoughchequer plans, such as at Drogheda and Galway, areoccasionally found, the predominant street plan waslinear, with the marketplace located in the center ofthe street and with houses positioned so that the gablewas on the street frontage. Access to the house wasoften by means of a side lane, thus giving rise to thelaneways that still characterize towns such as Clonmel,Drogheda, and Kilkenny. The houses themselves werepositioned on long narrow properties, known as bur-gage plots, which frequently stretched from the mainstreet to the town wall. These plots, combined with anacreage of arable land outside the walls and commonof pasture, were granted by the lord of the town to theincoming colonial heads of household, who were giventhe status of burgesses in return for the payment of anannual rent, generally set at one shilling. The earliesttown defenses were earthen, such as the example fromthe 1190s found in the course of archaeological exca-vation at Drogheda. Other towns, such as Duleek,retained earthen defenses throughout the Middle Ages.Defenses of earth and timber could be every bit asstrong and difficult to capture as stone walls, but fromabout the 1220s onward the larger towns began toreplace earthen ramparts with mortared stone. Stonedefenses were more expensive, but they were alsomore prestigious, and in medieval art and cartographythey were depicted as the symbol of a town. Townwalls served not merely as barriers to attack; they alsoenabled the control of movement to and from the town,and the town gates were important points for gatheringtolls. Among the tolls collected was murage, a tax onall goods coming into the town for sale, which waslevied in order to raise monies to pay for the construc-tion of the town walls. At first the grants were shortand simple, but by the mid-fifteenth century the listsof taxable commodities had become long and elabo-rate. Although town defenses fell out of use by 1700,some towns, such as Cashel, continued to collectmurage until the 1960s. The new Anglo-Norman townsare usually characterized by having one parish church,by the location of the lord’s castle on the edge of thetown, and by having religious houses and hospitalssituated either just inside the town wall or outside thetown completely.
In general terms the thirteenth century was a periodof urban expansion and population increase, with
extramural suburbs being a feature of many towns. Bycontrast, the fourteenth century was one of decline,brought on for much the same reasons as the contem-porary desertion of villages. Some towns, such asAthlone, Rindown, and Roscommon, were abandonedcompletely. The fifteenth century was a period of con-solidation, and it is not until the dissolution of themonasteries in the sixteenth century that expansion isagain evidenced, when urban land once more becameavailable for redevelopment.
The final phase of medieval urbanization, the devel-opment of towns such as Cavan and Longford in areascontrolled by the Gaelic Irish, is still little understood.The towns copied their form and layout from theneighboring late-medieval towns within the Pale, andthe townspeople seem to have profited particularlyfrom the sale of horses and livestock to Anglo-Irishmerchants. There is no evidence, however, that any ofthese Gaelic-Irish towns were walled.
JOHN BRADLEY
References and Further Reading
Bradley, John. Walled Towns in Ireland. Dublin: Town House,1995.
Doherty, Charles. “The Monastic Town in Early MedievalIreland.” In The Comparative History of Urban Origins inNon-Roman Europe, edited by H. B. Clarke and AnngretSimms, 45–75. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1985.
Thomas, Avril. The Walled Towns of Ireland. Dublin: Irish Aca-demic Press, 1992.
Wallace, P. F. “The Archaeological Identity of the Hiberno-Norse Town.” Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries ofIreland 122 (1992): 33–66.
See also Anglo-Norman Invasion; Battle of Clontarf; Ecclesiastical Settlements; Houses; Viking Incursions; Villages
WATERFORDWaterford is one of the major medieval ports along theeast coast of Ireland, originally founded as a Hiberno-Norse urban center in the tenth century. Its originalOld Norse name was Vedrarfjordr, which probablymeans “windy fjord,” where this inlet of the River Suiroffered a safe haven for their ships. Indeed, it has beencalculated that the quays of the city in the later MiddleAges could berth around 60 cargo ships. Thus it ishardly surprising that although Dublin remained thegovernmental and administrative capital of Irelandthroughout the Middle Ages, it was ports such asWaterford in the Southeast that dominated her inter-national trade. Throughout much of this periodWaterford remained the largest exporter of wool, woolproducts, and hides, as well as the biggest importer ofwines. It also became a significant entrepôt for French
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