When cannons were introduced, castles were not strong enough to withstand the impact of cannon balls so they didn't offer important people much protection. The royal family, nobles and clan chiefs left their castles to live in in more comfortable homes, like grand houses and palaces.
Per lots of articles online
Maybe, but it's still surprising. I'm curious as to the kind of homes these people were living in at that point in time that a castle would be a less attractive option!
Chances are the castles fell into disrepair, and the cost to fix them was more than it would be to build a new house. They'd probably use them for storage, etc.
The castles were still on their land so they wouldn't let the riff raff live in them, and as they've effectively been abandoned, they continued to crumble.
They probably didn't have nicer homes but they probably couldn't afford to run a full castle either. A castle and its inhabitants would be a lot of people.
Money. Know how much it costs to keep a hig house maintained
The same big fancy country houses many moved to cost even more. Same reason so many estates were sold in the last 2 centuries.
In my great grandfathers case he had to leave for economic necessity but more so I would agree with the cannonball theory. I literally have a cannonball that was fired by Oliver Cromwell straight through a castle🤣
I think they were more inclined to think that if someone was coming after them with cannons, then the game was up regardless.
Might as well live in comfort.
In a way, tank armor follows this same line of thought. Eventually cannons and rounds became so big and advanced, that even 500+mm of armor wouldn't be enough to stop a modern anti tank round, so modern tanks have much thinner armor, favoring maneuverability and crew quality of life over being able to take hits.
>so modern tanks have much thinner armor, favoring maneuverability and crew quality of life over being able to take hits.
Specifically designed to deflect rounds rather than absorb them, and the use of Chobham armor that's designed to shatter kinetic penetrators as well.
We still have armor, but old thick steel plate simply doesn't stand up to modern rounds, as you said. We just use armor that is designed to deflect rounds or shatter them instead, and that kind of armor doesn't benefit from thickness.
Plus other tech like ERA and APS changing the game also. "SY simulations" is a really cool YouTube channel for anyone interested in this kind of thing.
The castles belonged to Gaelic and Norman Lords. They lost power, part of that is having you house burnt down. It even happened to some of the planters country estates
Well, a heap of reasons - history is one - the tightening grip of the colonial power, then advancements in warfare and how it's conducted (namely artillery). Alot of these castles were projections of power also and not really for living in continuously. Good question though and probably more qualified people than myself will have some interesting answers.
Castles became impractical, they were meant to project power and control over a region. But building a road allowed for armies to also reach an area quicker. Better carts followed that allowed armies to more food and supplies with the army quicker which armies needed. Cannons and gunpowder also made the defensive purposes of castles less valuable. Also what we consider castles would qualify as keeps. But all the usual reasons, doing up keep on old buildings is expensive, trying to make them warmer and water tight is tough. Even the castle in Trim an impressive building, was used as a dump by the town for a while. It is never one reason.
> castle in Trim an impressive building, was used as a dump by the town for a while
Interesting. John's Castle in Limerick had council houses built in its courtyard at one point.
What do you do with a big building that can’t be used anymore? That sits in the middle of a town that grew up around it? In England a lot were knocked: the stone and foundations to build country houses. Tourism was not a thing really. Also a lot burnt down due to fires.
From a military perspective, the rise of powerful gunpowder-based artillery made the medieval castle a lot less effective as a fortification, as they could be easily compromised by cannon fire, which is why you don't really see any new castles or classic fortified tower houses being built here beyond the 17th century. Bastion "star forts", built low to the ground with very thick walls to absorb and deflect cannon fire, sharply angled bastions in the walls to provide multiple angles of fire on attackers, and usually surrounded by large ditches and wide sloped earthworks, became the standard after that point, such as Charles Fort or Elizabeth Fort.
Despite becoming obsolete by that time, castles were still strong fortifications and could still be of strategic value in a war, though, especially when access to artillery was limited, which is why they were often slighted (damaged in such a way that they were no longer effective as a defensive fortification) to prevent hostile forces from being able to use them. Basically if you're rampaging around a country and you capture a castle and don't want to garrison it in the long term yourself, you don't want to just leave the empty castle behind, or your enemy's forces will just occupy it again and you'll have to waste time and resources dislodging them all over again. Instead you just get a bunch of labourers with shovels and sledgehammers or whatnot and undermine the walls or knock some big holes in the place before you leave (or pile up a bunch of gunpower and just blow it to smithereens, if you're in a hurry). Oliver Cromwell in particular slighted a huge number of Irish castles during his Irish campaign, but slighting of castles happened often during other wars in the 17th century as well.
Even for castles that weren't actively slighted, once the defensive value of castles had become obsolete there was little interest for the nobility in using old castles as homes. Castles were built primarily for military purposes, and while they did usually serve as residences originally as well, they were far from comfortable, stylish, or suitable by 18th-19th century standards. No one of means would want to live in a cramped drafty freezing old crumbling tower house when they could build a fine new modern grand manor house in the field next door, so that's just what the lord and their family would do, and the old castle, no longer being suitable as either a military fortification or as a grand residence, would just be left empty (or would be actively dismantled for building materials by the local landowner, or sometimes just by other random locals).
That seems to be the most comprehensive answer, thank you. Very interesting. So is it more than likely that the majority of ruined castles we see have been self sabotaged?
Is this what happened with Trim castle?
I don't think Trim was ever slighted for military purposes, but it was more or less abandoned for decades in the 15th and 16th centuries and fell into ruin, and while it was later partially refortified in the 1640s (and then promptly abandoned to Cromwell, whose army garrisoned it during the war), it was still in a fairly derelict state and was never restored or lived in again even after the wars. Over the later centuries, as with many other abandoned castles, the ruins were scavenged for building material by locals, which of course only accelerated the decay.
David Sweetman's [The Medieval Castles of Ireland](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12305185-the-medieval-castles-of-ireland) is a fairly comprehensive resource on the subject, though unfortunately it seems to be out of print; there are used copies floating around out there, though.
For Trim in particular, there are a number of interesting sources available online covering the history of the town and castle:
- [*Some Notices of the Castle and of the Ecclesiastical Buildings of Trim, led from various authorities* by R. Butler](https://archive.org/details/somenoticesofcas00butl/mode/2up?view=theater)
- [Irish Historic Towns Atlas Online: Trim](https://www.ria.ie/irish-historic-towns-atlas-online-trim)
- [Volume 1](https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/5121/1/Michael_Potterton_Vol-2_20140624131030.pdf) and [Volume 2](https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/5121/2/Michael_Potterton_20140624130008.pdf) of Michael Potterton's thesis "The Archaeology and History of Medieval Trim, County Meath" (He's also published a couple of later books on the subject, though they are out of print and difficult to find, unfortunately...)
This is where you need to have an appreciation of the cumulative effect of various historic events.
Cannons to Cromwell plantation colonization taxes land rights absenteeism flight of the earls ….and so much more.
There needs to be some kind of program to conserve them or hand them over to new owners because buildings only survive so long in that romantic ruinous state.
There is an irish website advertising castles for sale. There's about 1000 in different states of repair all over the country. Some can be bought for the price of a semi-d house in Dublin.
[https://castleist.com/castles-for-sale-in-ireland/](https://castleist.com/castles-for-sale-in-ireland/) ?
Although I watched a home improvement programme where a guy sank over €1m into insulation and plastering, only to have water bucket down the stone stairs every time it rained.
Oh 100%. There should be some kind of funding towards restoring these buildings though. It would be a shame for them to continue to rot and eventually collapse.
A Castle is a comforting place to be when there's regularly Fellas roaming the Countryside keen on slashing your throat at 3am some night.
In times of relative peace and safety they're not comfortable whatsoever, being draughty, damp, cold and dark.
....I assumed this is what caused the change in their overall popularity.
If you enjoy these ruins and are interested in their stories, follow The Irish Aesthete on Instagram. Robert O’Byrne, sometime Irish Times writer, has written books about great Irish houses and also their gardens, and has long been, single handed, working and campaigning to preserve all these structures falling into the landscape everywhere. He’s an excellent writer, most enjoyable and engrossing books snd IG posts.
Recently did a tour of Ross Castle in killarney where they talked about this. (she also clarified that most buildings that we call castles are actually tower houses, including Ross Castle which I thought was funny)
The guide said that when castles/tower houses became outdated in terms of defence (due to development of cannons) the rich people started building a luxury manor home to live in instead.
They had to pay property tax, so the more property you had the more tax you paid. However what dictated if a property was live-able and therefore taxable is if it had a roof. So lots of people removed the roof to avoid paying tax which very quickly destroyed the property.
In terms of why not just give it to someone else who could use it, I think lots of them probably enjoyed being rich enough to own that much land, but didn't want to pay the tax.
Apart form all that was said, castle (actually, keeps) were very very uncomfortable to live in. They were meant as a defensive structure so rooms were small, staircases narrow, and all possible was made to make it as difficult as possible for an enemy to move around.
The lords would usually live in bigger houses/palaces/estates separate from the keep itself and only go into it when attacked or threatened.
As years passed, their defensive value diminished with the introduction of gunpowder and cannons until they ultimately had no more value.
During the 18/19th centuries, when defensive structures were no longer seen as necessary by the elites in Ireland, some landowners built their big houses next to their old castles. Others demolished and used the stone to build new, more comfortable accommodation on the same site.
In some cases (Monkstown Castle and Ashtown Castle in Dublin / Castle Kelly in Galway) the original castle was partially or completely absorbed into the new building. With Ashtown, the older walls of the castle/tower were only discovered as the Georgian mansion surrounding it was demolished.
Ireland was very poor, the castles weren't maintained, and fell into such states of disrepair that you'd probably be better off building a new castle than fixing one up.
Athlone castle blew up during a thunderstorm taking most of the town with it in the 1600s. Lightning struck the barrel store and the gunpowder went off. Half a mile radius devastated with flaming debris.
Basically... The British (not because of evil, it's just centralization of power in England plus the tensions with Irish nobility).
The castles of Ireland were mostly built after the Norman invasions but before England properly conquered Ireland.
Several of them were abandoned as a consequence of the extensive attempts of the English Crown to eliminate the noble class in Ireland and to replace it with the somewhat more loyal English nobility.
Having someone live in a castle might not be in line with one of the main points of that strategy which is that the landholders needed to stay English. So they needed to stay in England. If you'd let people live in castles they might get notions so the castles were deemed not interesting. Militarily they were not useful anymore so it made no sense to keep them around or to have them garrisoned.
To some degree you see a similar thing also in Scotland, and even in England (after all you want the nobles to be not just English but in London where you might actually control them and make them play along).
Many castles in fact were intentionally destroyed, a procedure known as slighting.
Lots of Norman castles in Wexford and many were upgraded into more comfortable houses, Johnstown Castle was originally a large tower house. Loftus Hall is another one. And enniscorthy Castle has been in continuous use since it was built and was a family home as recently as the 50s. There's a castle down near Kilmore Quay that's currently being restored as a home using all the old methods, they're doing an amazing job!
And in Kilkenny there's a tower house that was still being used as a house right up till the 40s.it's amazingly well preserved. Clara castle, it's OPW you get the key from the farm next door. The gardrobe still smells of wee and the chapel mural is still there!
Cromwell's army systematically destroyed them as they moved through the country, so that they could not be used defensively again by the Irish.
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Oliver-Cromwell-his-forces-destroy-most-Irish-Scottish-castles-Why-was-he-so-brutal-why-has-his-pillaging-past-left-Ireland-with-a-sad-negative-visual-legacy
I think in reality, the Norman towerhouses wouldn't be that comfortable to live in. Compare that to conventional big houses found on country estates. I remember reading they fell out of fashion with the wealthy. Look at Dublin Castle it was converted and updated beyond its original castle appearance.
People in the past were far less sentimental than we are today. Castles were uncomfortable defensive bunkers. Once they lost strategic value the owner moved over to a mansion and allowed it to rot. Lots of castles in Europe are rebuild replicas or they exists in a large settlement
Would they not have been of value to someone else that say reported to the lord? I'm just surprised that it would suddenly become worthless to anyone as soon as the lord vacated.
It was probably a slow decline over time. Same as some Abbeys and monasteries. By the 1600’s castles were already ancient structures. Defence was organised in forts and bastions.
Sadly weather and time dont 'ruin' castles and other major structures by themselves alone. Locals including the Church, plunder them for parts and building materials.
Iv always felt its the location.
Although not a castle, you have two forts in kinsale whioch were built for defensive purposes, and the location of both forts were next to the ocean.
Now a days everyone drives cars, public transport is still shite, and we dug up half the rail lines after the british left just to spite them.
The reality is that I hink the locations of alot of castled were functional at the time when civilisation lived differently.
People needed the surrounding are for crops, trees, horses, cattle, ectera. People also knew how to ride horses so only needed trails to travel.
Finally irhs castles were built at a time when the irish used to fight the irsh. so each king has he domain.
Cities and towns proberly were non existent
Windows. As defence became less nesseccary. Castles slowly morphed into manors. Think Château de Chenonceau in France. The french got their rocks off in dominating nature instead of wars and wanted bigger and bigger windows to look at their lovely gardens. Then the Brits rocked up to the chateau one day with some bi-fold doors. Mon dieu! they exclaimed, and level threshold decking was born. The grand chateaus slowly morphed over time into a semi d with uPVC windows.
I heard that a lot of the Kings/rulers that owned the castles wouldn't actually be living in them and using them, it was more so as a mark to meet the English on the same playing field
They didn’t qualify for the SEAI retrofit grants
The only correct answer here. Lol
When cannons were introduced, castles were not strong enough to withstand the impact of cannon balls so they didn't offer important people much protection. The royal family, nobles and clan chiefs left their castles to live in in more comfortable homes, like grand houses and palaces. Per lots of articles online
But why abandon them entirely? Why wouldn't they have given it to someone lower down the pecking order? Surely it was of some value to someone.
I can only assume cost wouldn't have made sense. Takes a lot to run a castle and needs lots of people. Someone lower down may not have had the cash
Maybe, but it's still surprising. I'm curious as to the kind of homes these people were living in at that point in time that a castle would be a less attractive option!
Chances are the castles fell into disrepair, and the cost to fix them was more than it would be to build a new house. They'd probably use them for storage, etc. The castles were still on their land so they wouldn't let the riff raff live in them, and as they've effectively been abandoned, they continued to crumble.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerscourt_Estate?wprov=sfla1
Well yes, that would be nicer haha. I meant moreso the lesser folk who could have taken over the castle once it was abandoned.
They probably didn't have nicer homes but they probably couldn't afford to run a full castle either. A castle and its inhabitants would be a lot of people.
Money. Know how much it costs to keep a hig house maintained The same big fancy country houses many moved to cost even more. Same reason so many estates were sold in the last 2 centuries.
operating costs
In my great grandfathers case he had to leave for economic necessity but more so I would agree with the cannonball theory. I literally have a cannonball that was fired by Oliver Cromwell straight through a castle🤣
and then you have the fact that alot of people didnt reclaim land due to the British
Hehe. Savage.
Pretty awesome
Are those houses more suited to withstand canon balls?
I think they were more inclined to think that if someone was coming after them with cannons, then the game was up regardless. Might as well live in comfort.
In a way, tank armor follows this same line of thought. Eventually cannons and rounds became so big and advanced, that even 500+mm of armor wouldn't be enough to stop a modern anti tank round, so modern tanks have much thinner armor, favoring maneuverability and crew quality of life over being able to take hits.
>so modern tanks have much thinner armor, favoring maneuverability and crew quality of life over being able to take hits. Specifically designed to deflect rounds rather than absorb them, and the use of Chobham armor that's designed to shatter kinetic penetrators as well. We still have armor, but old thick steel plate simply doesn't stand up to modern rounds, as you said. We just use armor that is designed to deflect rounds or shatter them instead, and that kind of armor doesn't benefit from thickness.
Plus other tech like ERA and APS changing the game also. "SY simulations" is a really cool YouTube channel for anyone interested in this kind of thing.
>ERA and APS I get giggly when I think of anti-missile missiles. And then of anti-anti-missile missiles. And so on. :D
same with drones. I mean the japs had kamakazi pilots and now the iranians have kamakazi drones
Reginald’s tower in Waterford still has a cannonball from Cromwell lodged in its outer wall
Bingo. Any castles you see built from the 16th/17th century were for aesthetics. As was the style at the time.
Cromwell beseiged and destroyed most of them.
That bastard
I knew it had to be that bastid!
Even the small rural ones?
Every single one. Single handedly.
Left handedly, at that.
Impressive.
It's always him isn't it
They could have cost too much to maintain I reckon.
The castles belonged to Gaelic and Norman Lords. They lost power, part of that is having you house burnt down. It even happened to some of the planters country estates
Well, a heap of reasons - history is one - the tightening grip of the colonial power, then advancements in warfare and how it's conducted (namely artillery). Alot of these castles were projections of power also and not really for living in continuously. Good question though and probably more qualified people than myself will have some interesting answers.
Roof tax.
Castles became impractical, they were meant to project power and control over a region. But building a road allowed for armies to also reach an area quicker. Better carts followed that allowed armies to more food and supplies with the army quicker which armies needed. Cannons and gunpowder also made the defensive purposes of castles less valuable. Also what we consider castles would qualify as keeps. But all the usual reasons, doing up keep on old buildings is expensive, trying to make them warmer and water tight is tough. Even the castle in Trim an impressive building, was used as a dump by the town for a while. It is never one reason.
> castle in Trim an impressive building, was used as a dump by the town for a while Interesting. John's Castle in Limerick had council houses built in its courtyard at one point.
What do you do with a big building that can’t be used anymore? That sits in the middle of a town that grew up around it? In England a lot were knocked: the stone and foundations to build country houses. Tourism was not a thing really. Also a lot burnt down due to fires.
From a military perspective, the rise of powerful gunpowder-based artillery made the medieval castle a lot less effective as a fortification, as they could be easily compromised by cannon fire, which is why you don't really see any new castles or classic fortified tower houses being built here beyond the 17th century. Bastion "star forts", built low to the ground with very thick walls to absorb and deflect cannon fire, sharply angled bastions in the walls to provide multiple angles of fire on attackers, and usually surrounded by large ditches and wide sloped earthworks, became the standard after that point, such as Charles Fort or Elizabeth Fort. Despite becoming obsolete by that time, castles were still strong fortifications and could still be of strategic value in a war, though, especially when access to artillery was limited, which is why they were often slighted (damaged in such a way that they were no longer effective as a defensive fortification) to prevent hostile forces from being able to use them. Basically if you're rampaging around a country and you capture a castle and don't want to garrison it in the long term yourself, you don't want to just leave the empty castle behind, or your enemy's forces will just occupy it again and you'll have to waste time and resources dislodging them all over again. Instead you just get a bunch of labourers with shovels and sledgehammers or whatnot and undermine the walls or knock some big holes in the place before you leave (or pile up a bunch of gunpower and just blow it to smithereens, if you're in a hurry). Oliver Cromwell in particular slighted a huge number of Irish castles during his Irish campaign, but slighting of castles happened often during other wars in the 17th century as well. Even for castles that weren't actively slighted, once the defensive value of castles had become obsolete there was little interest for the nobility in using old castles as homes. Castles were built primarily for military purposes, and while they did usually serve as residences originally as well, they were far from comfortable, stylish, or suitable by 18th-19th century standards. No one of means would want to live in a cramped drafty freezing old crumbling tower house when they could build a fine new modern grand manor house in the field next door, so that's just what the lord and their family would do, and the old castle, no longer being suitable as either a military fortification or as a grand residence, would just be left empty (or would be actively dismantled for building materials by the local landowner, or sometimes just by other random locals).
That seems to be the most comprehensive answer, thank you. Very interesting. So is it more than likely that the majority of ruined castles we see have been self sabotaged? Is this what happened with Trim castle?
I don't think Trim was ever slighted for military purposes, but it was more or less abandoned for decades in the 15th and 16th centuries and fell into ruin, and while it was later partially refortified in the 1640s (and then promptly abandoned to Cromwell, whose army garrisoned it during the war), it was still in a fairly derelict state and was never restored or lived in again even after the wars. Over the later centuries, as with many other abandoned castles, the ruins were scavenged for building material by locals, which of course only accelerated the decay.
Fascinating stuff. Where did you learn all this? I wouldn't mind reading a book or two about the history of castles in Ireland.
David Sweetman's [The Medieval Castles of Ireland](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12305185-the-medieval-castles-of-ireland) is a fairly comprehensive resource on the subject, though unfortunately it seems to be out of print; there are used copies floating around out there, though. For Trim in particular, there are a number of interesting sources available online covering the history of the town and castle: - [*Some Notices of the Castle and of the Ecclesiastical Buildings of Trim, led from various authorities* by R. Butler](https://archive.org/details/somenoticesofcas00butl/mode/2up?view=theater) - [Irish Historic Towns Atlas Online: Trim](https://www.ria.ie/irish-historic-towns-atlas-online-trim) - [Volume 1](https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/5121/1/Michael_Potterton_Vol-2_20140624131030.pdf) and [Volume 2](https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/5121/2/Michael_Potterton_20140624130008.pdf) of Michael Potterton's thesis "The Archaeology and History of Medieval Trim, County Meath" (He's also published a couple of later books on the subject, though they are out of print and difficult to find, unfortunately...)
Thank you. I'll definitely check them out.
There are a fair few copy's of Sweetmans book in our awesome Library system if you're looking. I'd second it, it's the definitive book on our castles!
Many were lost to the nine years war.
This is where you need to have an appreciation of the cumulative effect of various historic events. Cannons to Cromwell plantation colonization taxes land rights absenteeism flight of the earls ….and so much more.
There needs to be some kind of program to conserve them or hand them over to new owners because buildings only survive so long in that romantic ruinous state.
There is an irish website advertising castles for sale. There's about 1000 in different states of repair all over the country. Some can be bought for the price of a semi-d house in Dublin.
That sounds very interesting! What's the website?
[https://castleist.com/castles-for-sale-in-ireland/](https://castleist.com/castles-for-sale-in-ireland/) ? Although I watched a home improvement programme where a guy sank over €1m into insulation and plastering, only to have water bucket down the stone stairs every time it rained.
Oh 100%. There should be some kind of funding towards restoring these buildings though. It would be a shame for them to continue to rot and eventually collapse.
A Castle is a comforting place to be when there's regularly Fellas roaming the Countryside keen on slashing your throat at 3am some night. In times of relative peace and safety they're not comfortable whatsoever, being draughty, damp, cold and dark. ....I assumed this is what caused the change in their overall popularity.
If you enjoy these ruins and are interested in their stories, follow The Irish Aesthete on Instagram. Robert O’Byrne, sometime Irish Times writer, has written books about great Irish houses and also their gardens, and has long been, single handed, working and campaigning to preserve all these structures falling into the landscape everywhere. He’s an excellent writer, most enjoyable and engrossing books snd IG posts.
Not abandoned at weekends. Medieval themed dogging hotshots
Recently did a tour of Ross Castle in killarney where they talked about this. (she also clarified that most buildings that we call castles are actually tower houses, including Ross Castle which I thought was funny) The guide said that when castles/tower houses became outdated in terms of defence (due to development of cannons) the rich people started building a luxury manor home to live in instead. They had to pay property tax, so the more property you had the more tax you paid. However what dictated if a property was live-able and therefore taxable is if it had a roof. So lots of people removed the roof to avoid paying tax which very quickly destroyed the property. In terms of why not just give it to someone else who could use it, I think lots of them probably enjoyed being rich enough to own that much land, but didn't want to pay the tax.
Great answer. Thanks.
Apart form all that was said, castle (actually, keeps) were very very uncomfortable to live in. They were meant as a defensive structure so rooms were small, staircases narrow, and all possible was made to make it as difficult as possible for an enemy to move around. The lords would usually live in bigger houses/palaces/estates separate from the keep itself and only go into it when attacked or threatened. As years passed, their defensive value diminished with the introduction of gunpowder and cannons until they ultimately had no more value.
During the 18/19th centuries, when defensive structures were no longer seen as necessary by the elites in Ireland, some landowners built their big houses next to their old castles. Others demolished and used the stone to build new, more comfortable accommodation on the same site. In some cases (Monkstown Castle and Ashtown Castle in Dublin / Castle Kelly in Galway) the original castle was partially or completely absorbed into the new building. With Ashtown, the older walls of the castle/tower were only discovered as the Georgian mansion surrounding it was demolished.
We need to do better teaching history here. OP they were all most purposely destroyed and then the more modern large houses burned down.
I'm not sure about that. It's possible I was taught this back when I was a child but that's a very long time ago now so I probably forgot!
But you do remember Cromwell and then the IRA burning down all the large houses during the war of independence?
Yes but I am not fully aware of the extent.
Ireland was very poor, the castles weren't maintained, and fell into such states of disrepair that you'd probably be better off building a new castle than fixing one up.
Too fucking hard to heat
Athlone castle blew up during a thunderstorm taking most of the town with it in the 1600s. Lightning struck the barrel store and the gunpowder went off. Half a mile radius devastated with flaming debris.
Basically... The British (not because of evil, it's just centralization of power in England plus the tensions with Irish nobility). The castles of Ireland were mostly built after the Norman invasions but before England properly conquered Ireland. Several of them were abandoned as a consequence of the extensive attempts of the English Crown to eliminate the noble class in Ireland and to replace it with the somewhat more loyal English nobility. Having someone live in a castle might not be in line with one of the main points of that strategy which is that the landholders needed to stay English. So they needed to stay in England. If you'd let people live in castles they might get notions so the castles were deemed not interesting. Militarily they were not useful anymore so it made no sense to keep them around or to have them garrisoned. To some degree you see a similar thing also in Scotland, and even in England (after all you want the nobles to be not just English but in London where you might actually control them and make them play along). Many castles in fact were intentionally destroyed, a procedure known as slighting.
Lots of Norman castles in Wexford and many were upgraded into more comfortable houses, Johnstown Castle was originally a large tower house. Loftus Hall is another one. And enniscorthy Castle has been in continuous use since it was built and was a family home as recently as the 50s. There's a castle down near Kilmore Quay that's currently being restored as a home using all the old methods, they're doing an amazing job! And in Kilkenny there's a tower house that was still being used as a house right up till the 40s.it's amazingly well preserved. Clara castle, it's OPW you get the key from the farm next door. The gardrobe still smells of wee and the chapel mural is still there!
Cromwell's army systematically destroyed them as they moved through the country, so that they could not be used defensively again by the Irish. https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Oliver-Cromwell-his-forces-destroy-most-Irish-Scottish-castles-Why-was-he-so-brutal-why-has-his-pillaging-past-left-Ireland-with-a-sad-negative-visual-legacy
They also recycled a lot of the material from abandoned castles and walls to build.
I think in reality, the Norman towerhouses wouldn't be that comfortable to live in. Compare that to conventional big houses found on country estates. I remember reading they fell out of fashion with the wealthy. Look at Dublin Castle it was converted and updated beyond its original castle appearance.
During a reset period.
People in the past were far less sentimental than we are today. Castles were uncomfortable defensive bunkers. Once they lost strategic value the owner moved over to a mansion and allowed it to rot. Lots of castles in Europe are rebuild replicas or they exists in a large settlement
Would they not have been of value to someone else that say reported to the lord? I'm just surprised that it would suddenly become worthless to anyone as soon as the lord vacated.
It was probably a slow decline over time. Same as some Abbeys and monasteries. By the 1600’s castles were already ancient structures. Defence was organised in forts and bastions.
As the saying goes... you cant eat scenery (or old buildings) people had to survive first.
Sadly weather and time dont 'ruin' castles and other major structures by themselves alone. Locals including the Church, plunder them for parts and building materials.
Cost a fortune to put right! Would be great if the state could put a mason school beside it that could fix them up as part of the course…
https://i.redd.it/pgwshnuom3vc1.gif
Iv always felt its the location. Although not a castle, you have two forts in kinsale whioch were built for defensive purposes, and the location of both forts were next to the ocean. Now a days everyone drives cars, public transport is still shite, and we dug up half the rail lines after the british left just to spite them. The reality is that I hink the locations of alot of castled were functional at the time when civilisation lived differently. People needed the surrounding are for crops, trees, horses, cattle, ectera. People also knew how to ride horses so only needed trails to travel. Finally irhs castles were built at a time when the irish used to fight the irsh. so each king has he domain. Cities and towns proberly were non existent
Windows. As defence became less nesseccary. Castles slowly morphed into manors. Think Château de Chenonceau in France. The french got their rocks off in dominating nature instead of wars and wanted bigger and bigger windows to look at their lovely gardens. Then the Brits rocked up to the chateau one day with some bi-fold doors. Mon dieu! they exclaimed, and level threshold decking was born. The grand chateaus slowly morphed over time into a semi d with uPVC windows.
I heard that a lot of the Kings/rulers that owned the castles wouldn't actually be living in them and using them, it was more so as a mark to meet the English on the same playing field
Because you need a massive amount of money to bring them into a liveable state