Adapting the irish tower house

Universiteit of Hasselt Project
Master Thesis 2025

Abstract:

Ireland boasts a rich heritage of medieval artifacts, including approximately 7000 tower houses scattered across its cities, towns, and countryside. These structures, dating from the 15th to 17th centuries, often lie in a state of neglect, with no definitive plans for their preservation. This thesis aims to understand the architectural and historical integrity of the tower house typology and create guidelines with adaptive reuse strategies to aid their preservation in a meaningful way. This objective will be achieved through the conceptual adaptive reuse case study, that was completed on the Burnchurch Castle site located in County Kilkenny, Ireland. Where the existing tower house, turret and bawn is adapted to be a whiskey distillery, barn owl conservation and meeting point for the proposed use. The thesis reflects on the Burnchurch Castle case study’s attempts to preserve the architectural and historical integrity of the said site and overall tower house typology. Through this reflection of the balance between integrity preservation and contemporary use comes guidelines that hope to assist in potential adaptive reuse projects of tower houses in a similar condition. For this thesis, the similar conditions refers to tower houses that are neglected with no modern adaptations yet remain structurally sound.