Ninth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

The century from 1550-1650 witnessed the Plantations in Ireland. English settlers were planted in Ireland to help introduce a settled, ordered, and agricultural society. Farming and cultivated fields were the central pillars in an emerging colonial strategy that viewed agriculture, permanent structures, and towns as the essential signifiers of civilized life. This policy was first applied in the pastoral landscape of Ireland, characterized by the mobility of an economic system based largely on herds of animals. The lack of urban settlements other than a few ports and the limited number of permanent structures combined with the absence of primogeniture convinced the English of Irish barbarity and incivility while also explaining the chaos, disorder and violence of Ireland. Consequently, English farmers were planted on confiscated lands. Each land grant had strict rules for introducing cultivation, specific types of architecture and materials, the building and maintenance of towns and walls with hedges and ditches for defense and the building of fences, roads, bridges, and gardens. An examination of the grants along with the details of the imagined urban spaces reveals the importance of material culture in transforming the landscape and culture of Ireland: indeed, later grants went insisted that the Irish speak English, adopt English clothes and even eat at table using knives and forks. A discussion of Irish resistance to and destruction of many of these material symbols will make clear how aware both sides were of the importance of the built environment in creating a particular culture, society, and space.