HOUSESgone hand-in-hand with new ideas about personal sta-
tus and concepts of private and public space. Rectan-
gular houses (typically 6 to 8 meters in length) were
usually simply constructed, with low stone, earth, or
turf walls, and internal wooden poles to support
thatched roofs. In terms of location, they tend to be
found closer to entrances and towards the sides of
ringfort enclosures.
The Social and Symbolic Organization
of Early Medieval Houses
Experimental archaeology has shown that wooden
roundhouses, if carefully maintained, could have lasted
as long as fifty or sixty years (i.e., the lifetime of an
individual). It is probable that early medieval houses
had lifecycles that were related in a practical and met-
aphorical sense to those of their inhabitants. It is inter-
esting then that some early medieval houses were
deliberately rebuilt on the location of earlier dwellings
(e.g., at Leacanabuile, Co. Cork, Dressogagh, Co.
Armagh, and Deer Park Farms, Co. Antrim). This
could be interpreted as an attempt to establish a his-
torical continuity and symbolic link with the previous
household. There is also archaeological evidence for
the formal deposition of objects in the ground (i.e., in
pits, the house floor and in wall slots of the “old”
house) at the end of the life of one house and perhaps
the beginning of the next. These deposits of broken
rotary millstones and plow parts, items associated with
agricultural labor and the domestic preparation of
food, may have been intended to mark the “death” of
the house (and perhaps a person associated with it).
In most early medieval roundhouses, doorways typi-
cally face east and southeast. This orientation is typically
interpreted in terms of the practical shelter provided
from prevailing wet, southwesterly winds. It is also
possible that doorways were customarily oriented
towards the sunrise, for long-standing symbolic or cos-
mological reasons. It is also clear that the entrance
would have been oriented to enable the household to
watch visitors entering the enclosure, as most doors
point towards the ringfort entrance. The hearth or the
fireplace would also have been of huge symbolic and
social importance, being literally at the center of the
house and most indoor domestic activities. Hearths
seemed to have served as the constant around which
domestic life moved. They were frequently defined in
some way. Usually, long stones are set on edge to
create a rectangle or square, with rounded stones
placed at the corners. There is also sometimes evidence
for wooden structures beside the hearth, probably serv-
ing to suspend cooking vessels or roasting meat. There
is frequent evidence for the cleaning of hearths, and
for their reconstruction across long periods of time
(i.e., with hearths re-built at slightly different loca-
tions, on five to six occasions).Houses in Hiberno-Norse Dublin
and Waterford (c.950–1200A.D.)
Archaeological excavations in Dublin, Waterford, and
Wexford have also provided much evidence about
houses between the tenth and the thirteenth centuries
A.D. In Hiberno-Norse Dublin, houses were usually
located on the front end of long, narrow plots, which
originally seem to have stretched from the street front-
age to the town defenses. Each house was entered from
the street, with a back or side exit into a plot out the
back, where there may have been vegetable gardens,
pigpens, workshops, and storehouses. Each house also
would have had a latrine pit out the back. Studies of
the paleofecal material in the pits allows understanding
of peoples’ diets, stomach ailments, and other health
problems.
There were several different types of houses in use in
Hiberno-Norse Dublin and late Viking-Age Waterford.
Wallace’s (1992) Dublin Type 1 houses were the most
common (comprising about seventy percent of all
houses in Dublin). The origins of the Dublin Type 1
house are still a matter of debate. It may have evolved
in Ireland before the tenth century, or it may be an
Irish version of the rectangular farmsteads found in
Norse settlements in the Earldom of Orkney. These
houses were sub-rectangular in plan, with double
entrances, aisled partitions, and internal roof supports.
They typically measured 7.5 m by 5.5 m; with walls
up to 1.25 m high. The walls were of post-and-wattle,
typically of ash, hazel, and willow. The roofs were
supported on four main posts arranged in a rectangle
within the floor area. The floors of the houses were cov-
eredwith laid clay or post-and-wattle, and paleoenvi-
ronmental studies of floor deposits of dung, hair, mosses,
food remains, ash, and brushwood have revealed much
of living conditions and practices. The houses may
have been rebuilt every 15 to 20 years.
There were usually two opposed doors, located in
the end walls, one giving access to the street, the other
to buildings at the rear of the plot. Internally, the floor
space was divided into thirds, with the central strip,
sometimes paved or graveled, being the broadest. A
rectangular stone-lined fireplace was located in the cen-
ter. Along the side walls, low benches were used both
for sitting and sleeping. Sometimes corner areas near
the doors were partitioned off to form a private space.
By the mid-twelfth century (in Waterford) and
slightly later in Hiberno-Norse Dublin, there is a shift
towards the use of rectangular houses constructed on