House - 16th/17th century, Kilmallock, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
House
On the west side of Kilmallock's Main Street stands a structure known locally as the Creggs building, a late sixteenth or early seventeenth century house whose fabric has survived long enough to attract the attention of archaeologists.
That survival alone is worth pausing over. Kilmallock was one of the most important walled towns in medieval Munster, and the streets that once housed prosperous Anglo-Norman merchants and later Old English families still contain, if you look carefully, the remnants of that layered past pressed into stonework and foundations.
The Creggs building sits within a town that reached its peak during the late medieval period, when Kilmallock functioned as a significant administrative and commercial centre in County Limerick. The town's layout, its surviving Dominican priory, its collegiate church, and its fragments of town wall all point to a place of considerable consequence. A house of this date on the Main Street would likely have belonged to a family of some means, possibly a merchant or civic figure, though the notes do not record the original occupants. What is recorded is that the building was undergoing archaeological excavation in 2014, a process that typically involves careful examination of floor layers, wall foundations, and any objects deposited over centuries of use. Such excavations in urban settings frequently reveal evidence of earlier structures beneath later ones, as towns tend to rebuild on themselves rather than expand outward.
Kilmallock is a small town in south County Limerick, roughly thirty kilometres from Limerick city, and it rewards a slow walk rather than a quick stop. The Main Street itself retains enough of its older building stock to give a sense of the town's former scale and ambition. The Creggs building, depending on its condition and any ongoing or completed works since the 2014 excavation, may not be accessible from the interior, but its street frontage on the west side of Main Street places it within easy reach of the town's other medieval survivals. Visitors with an interest in vernacular urban architecture will find that the buildings here repay close looking, particularly the way later alterations sit awkwardly against much older masonry beneath.
