Re: Re: ‘Dutch Billys’
@gunter wrote:
Direct Dutch immigration into the Limerick civic elite would help explain the degree to which the city went ‘Dutch Billy’ mad at a time when Cork City appeared to stay more provincial English.
Judith Hill writes in her book “The Building of Limerick†how much the gabled houses owe to the Dutch inhabitants of Limerick is debatable.
The Pacata map of 1633 showed gables fronting Broad Street in Irish Town. If this was an established tradition it was continued when the Dutch gabled houses were built in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century.
I summarise here as to what she basically wrote in that after the 1691 treaty, the city’s housing stock was severally damaged.
The new Dutch immigrants built their houses using lighter materials, rectangular windows which improved lighting etc, etc thus giving them a fashionable appearance.
It seems reasonable that the existing inhabitants might have found this new style to be an improvement and adopt it for themselves. That much of the existing housing stock had roof ridges at right angles to the street so that each house presented a separate gable at the front. Such buildings could be easily ‘converted’ into Dutch houses i.e. old stoned houses received a new façade with a red brick skin, with large vertical windows.
I was unsure of the street location of this picture. It was not Castle Street but in fact take at Meat Market Lane, off Sheep St.
The Limerick Museum reveals a print with Dutch Gables on Castle Street. See below.
Print, lithograph, b/w framed. “King John’s Castle/ Limerick/ Dublin Published by S. Brocas, 15 Henry St., Jan 7 1826″, at centre bottom, at left “Drawn on Stone by S. Brocas” at right “Printed by M.H. & J.W. Allen, 32 Dame St.,” View from on Thomond Bridge looking towards Nicholas Street, with a carriage drawn by four horses, with 4 men on top, about to enter onto the bridge; at left tall Dutch gabled buildings line the street, at right lower seemingly semi-derelict buildings in front of castle; at right the two towers of the castle gatehouse are in ruinous state, and the N.W. tower is cut at edge of frame.
