Ruin or Renewal

Description

This thesis aims to explore possible interventions to a common typology in the Irish landscape that could help to alleviate current issues challenging rural society.

Late mediaeval tower houses once dominated and demarcated the island of Ireland into its petty kingdoms and clan holdings. Now they stand as gentle reminders of a chaotic past, when in the name of conquest, cultures combined just as easily as they clashed. What if these crumbling and collapsing structures could be rediscovered and given a new purpose, one which not only preserves the towers themselves and prevents their decay, but gives new life to dwindling agrarian communities and inspires renewed vigour in the Gaelic traditions and culture they once were so tied to?

This thesis invisions that the chosen project site Renvyle Castle, Co. Galway could serve as a prototype for a nascent towerhouse intervention typology through which a successful combination program can be reinserted and replicated at many similar sites throughout the landscape. Ultimately the core philosophy of this thesis is that ‘using is maintenance’, that by reprogramming and giving purpose to rapidly decaying structures they may be preserved in their current state for future generations in a way that is reversible and not utterly transformative as is seen in restoration projects.

Listed monuments are in a sort of maintenance limbo whereby they must either be restored using period correct materials and techniques or left alone to crumble into obscurity. This thesis aims to provide a possible alternative to the tedious, expensive, and thankless job of restoring a tower house. The tower houses ubiquity amongst the Irish midlands and west coast provides an excellent opportunity to not only develop upon a thriving tourist industry but to highlight and preserve their importance to the fabric of the landscape as they stand, in varying states of ruin.