House
types
Some have tried to distinguish vernacular houses on the basis of the position of their hearth. The hearth can be on a gable or in a central position. However this apparently straightforward classification is made difficult when additional rooms are added beyond a gable, making a gable hearth into a central hearth. A more useful method of classifying vernacular houses lies in the relationship between the door and the hearth. Hearth Lobby houses
Direct-entry houses.
A number of alternative forms seems to have derived from byre-dwellings. In some cases the byre was separated from the main living area with a solid wall with separate access for the animals. Often this allowed the room where the byre would have been to become a bedroom. If a bedroom already existed beyond the fireplace, the 'new' room may have become a formal parlour. These would have been three unit houses, and occasionally four unit houses would also have been constructed.
Outshots In
many areas in the north and west of Ireland, the bed outshot is a feature
of vernacular architecture, as here in a modernised cottage close to
Malin Head. This extension, usually to the rear of the dwelling, housed a bed next to the kitchen hearth. Traditionally this bed was used by the oldest inhabitants of the house. A shallow bed outshot meant that much of the bed protruded into the kitchen floor area but many outshots were deep enough to accommodate the bed entirely. The bed was screened by curtains or, more commonly in Donegal, by wooden doors. Since the bed outshot is found in direct entry houses which have derived from byre dwellings, it is unclear why they are not generally found in of County Antrim and Down, for example. Perhaps they existed in the past but there is little evidence to support this. They date back at least to the early 19th Century and are a traditional element of vernacular buildings. Since they co-existed with houses without outshots, and in many areas were in the minority, they are not thought to provide the basis for a separate oushe type.
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