Georgian country house's interior design
When Castletown House was built in the 1720s, individual chambers or rooms in grand stately homes still weren't private space, rather, they were inter-connected and both the rooms and the hallways were sort of "public" space for any famiy member or their guests. In order to walk from one room to another at the other side of the house, one must walk through all the rooms in between, as seen here. Privacy and individualism weren't quite so important back then.
The modern concept of each bedroom having its own self-contained, private space with closed-off walls and a lockable door didn't appear until later in the 1700s.
Castletown House was built in 1722 - 1729 for William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish Parliament, and one of the wealthiest Anglo-Irish protestant aristocrats in Ireland at the time.
xxxxx
Protestant Ascendancy, roughly between the 1650s and the 1910s, refers to the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland by a minority of great Protestant landowners. Back in 1652, Oliver Cromwell passed the Act of Settlement, seizing a vast majority of arable land in Ireland from the Catholics and distributing it to Protestant soldiers and noblemen. From that point on until the 1880s, the Catholics were to become poor tenant farmers under the control of their aristocratic Protestant landlords.
The Protestant Ascendancy was a period of great prosperity for landed gentry, and they built magnificent country houses around Ireland. The Georgian and Palladian stately homes in Ireland are amongst the finest in all of the British Isles. Meanwhile, the Catholics were not even allowed to buy land and were the poorest people in Europe at the time. I've heard a saying that even these days, few Irish Catholics have much interest in visiting these homes, even though they are now mostly under the care of the Irish government.
Georgian country house's interior design
When Castletown House was built in the 1720s, individual chambers or rooms in grand stately homes still weren't private space, rather, they were inter-connected and both the rooms and the hallways were sort of "public" space for any famiy member or their guests. In order to walk from one room to another at the other side of the house, one must walk through all the rooms in between, as seen here. Privacy and individualism weren't quite so important back then.
The modern concept of each bedroom having its own self-contained, private space with closed-off walls and a lockable door didn't appear until later in the 1700s.
Castletown House was built in 1722 - 1729 for William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish Parliament, and one of the wealthiest Anglo-Irish protestant aristocrats in Ireland at the time.
xxxxx
Protestant Ascendancy, roughly between the 1650s and the 1910s, refers to the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland by a minority of great Protestant landowners. Back in 1652, Oliver Cromwell passed the Act of Settlement, seizing a vast majority of arable land in Ireland from the Catholics and distributing it to Protestant soldiers and noblemen. From that point on until the 1880s, the Catholics were to become poor tenant farmers under the control of their aristocratic Protestant landlords.
The Protestant Ascendancy was a period of great prosperity for landed gentry, and they built magnificent country houses around Ireland. The Georgian and Palladian stately homes in Ireland are amongst the finest in all of the British Isles. Meanwhile, the Catholics were not even allowed to buy land and were the poorest people in Europe at the time. I've heard a saying that even these days, few Irish Catholics have much interest in visiting these homes, even though they are now mostly under the care of the Irish government.