3-052-651 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Irish Sketches: Ballintuber Castle, County Roscommon, [Ireland], 1880. 'The ancient and royal race of O'Connor were the original lords of this district; and at the time of the English invasion Roderick O'Connor was the most powerful chief in Ireland. The style of "O'Conor Don" is a remnant of the dignities that belonged to this old Irish family. The English erected castles to maintain their power and to keep the natives in check ; they founded monasteries and endowed cathedrals; and all these buildings they erected in the style of their own country, modified by having to employ native workmen, and by the nature of the materials they had to work on; and, in general, buildings of the same style are later in date in Ireland than in England. Up to that time the natives had no stone buildings. It is true that, in the ninth century, Danish chiefs built castles and fortress on the banks of the rivers, to secure their conquests; but Cambrensis, writing in 1185, testifies that though these castles were then empty and deserted, the Irish chiefs disdained to occupy them. "For the Irish," he said, "build no castles; woods serve them for fortifications, and morasses for intrenchments".' From "Illustrated London News", 1880.