Browse Items (44 total)

When the great Spanish Armada was defeated by the English and blown away from the English Channel in 1588, many of its ships sailed homeward by first travelling north, rounding Scotland and Ireland, then travelling out into the open Atlantic on their…

The prehistoric great Irish elk was long extinct by Spenser’s time, but its bones and magnificent antlers would have been found preserved in bogs. Examples can be found today, mounted as trophies, in many Irish castles and…

Archaeologist Eric Klingelhofer suggests that a kitchen building may have been attached to an interior bawn wall (also hypothetical) that runs roughly SW-NE between the Tower House and the east bawn wall. A small kitchen building is therefore…

These long darts, or throwing spears with finger-loops, resemble those used by the native Irish and are modeled on the weapon held by English Captain Tom Lee in the portrait (c. 1590s) by Marcus Gheeraerts (Tate Gallery, London). In John Derricke’s…

The lute was a popular renaissance instrument similar to the modern-day guitar. Eric Klingelhofer’s excavations of Kilcolman in the mid-1990s uncovered a tuning peg for a lute or similar stringed instrument. The find was located in a stratification…

This great oak mantelpiece is fancifully modeled after two different early modern wall-pieces found in situ in Ireland today: 1) the allegorical figures in plaster wainscoting in the Long Gallery of Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary, commissioned in the…

A mantle is a common type of heavy woolen cloak found in medieval and early modern Ireland. Fantastic, colorful and richly woven varieties are described in medieval Irish poetry. Elaborate and expensive mantles would have been worn by the rich and…

Spenser the administrator would have taken a keen interest in the extent and progress of the Munster plantation. As a government official, he was intimately familiar with Ireland’s lawcourts, including those concerning property rights. As one of the…

On the table in the Tower House Parlor sits a “mether,” which is a four-sided, four-handled Irish drinking vessel carved of wood. Other examples are found in the Great Hall.

An example from the 16th century with the provenance “Kilcolman, Co.…

On the west wall, facing the window, is a mural of St Christopher carrying the boy Jesus across the river. At his foot is a snake, representing sin and the devil, who is trodden underfoot.

St Christopher does not appear in the Bible but was…