‘Castles, Mansions and Residences Were Sent Up in Flames’

This chapter tracks the beginnings of the house burnings as the Irish War of Independence broke out. By then, the Ireland that the survivors returned to was very different to the one they had left. While the thinning of aristocratic society further south had been ongoing since the beginning of the Land War in 1879, revolution proved to be a catalyst. However, the burning of Big Houses did not begin until the spring of 1920. The houses were being burned for multiple reasons, such as for strategic concerns or as reprisals. Additionally, the chapter shows that there is an argument to be made that civil war conditions continued to provide further opportunity to dismantle the architecture of the Big House and to rid the countryside of the physical reminders of the coloniser, and to some this may have been at least as important as political or military struggle.