ABSTRACT
Over 90 per cent of Ireland’s stock is in single-family houses, many of them detached bungalows standing in their own grounds. This has resulted partly from a strong tradition of individual ownership and self-building in rural areas, partly from a ready supply of land and labour, and partly from savings and remittances stemming from rural traditions and emigration. In some periods in the early 1980s, Ireland’s investment in housing was actually ahead of all the other countries as a percentage of national wealth. Celtic Ireland, on the furthest edge of Western Europe, is shrouded in mystery – the Gaelic language; a Celtic Catholicism; the monastic tradition; peasant farming, some secure and prosperous, some barely subsisting; island cultures; and a rich poetic and artistic legacy. Ireland’s housing history builds on a peasant tradition, coloured by nationalist fervour and a strong attachment to the land, with an urban tradition dominated by British industrial and administrative patterns.
