Lincoln Shell Keep Published book titles 2012

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Clanricard's Castle:  Portumna House, Co. Galway


Author: Jane Fenlon (Ed.), with Mark Girouard (Introduction).
Publisher: Four Courts Press. Date: 31 Aug 2012. Hb: 224 pages. ISBN-10: 1846823447. ISBN-13: 978-1846823442


This book addresses many of the questions posed by the building and situation of Portumna Castle. In his introduction, Mark Girouard describes the building as ‘Irish and yet not Irish, a castle and yet not a castle, magnificent in scale’, but only on Irish terms. The authors explore the background to the planning and building of such a splendid symmetrical house west of the Shannon in the early 17th century. Contents include: Michael Mc Carthy, Locating Portumna Castle in contemporary theory and practice in European architecture; Bernadette Cunningham, Richard Burke (c.1570–1635) and the lordship at Clanricard; Jane Fenlon, Portumna, a great, many-windowed and gabled house; Ken Curley and Jane Felon, Portumna Castle - the site; Donald Murphy and Victoria Ginn, Portumna: the excavations; Paul Mc Mahon, Conservation at Portumna; Paula Henderson, The setting of the early 17th-century house; Martin Ellis, Aston Hall, Birmingham: a coeval house, furnishings and interiors.

Jane Fenlon lectures in art history in the School of Art History and Cultural Policy, UCD.

Blarney Castle - An Irish Tower House

Author:  James Lyttleton

Publisher: Four Courts Press

Pb. 180pp; large format, colour ills.
ISBN: 978-1-84682-314-5
Catalogue Price: €19.95.

Blarney Castle, the medieval home of the MacCarthy lords of Muskerry, is one of Ireland’s best-known castles. Many visitors to Ireland include a trip to the castle in their itinerary, often queuing to kiss the Blarney Stone in hope of acquiring the ‘gift of the gab’. Yet, despite the castle’s ubiquitous image on postcards and tourist promotional literature, the building’s historical and archaeological significance as a native lordly residence are not widely appreciated. Illustrated in full colour, this book brings the castle’s architecture to the fore, placing it in the context of an expansive native lordship in late medieval Munster, and showing how changes in the layout and appearance of the building can be attributed to the castle’s occupants, who continued to redefine their social standing and cultural identity through the Tudor reconquest and beyond. The book includes a timeline to help situate developments at Blarney in a wider context, as well as a walking guide that will add an extra dimension to any tour of the castle. A handy glossary explains technical terms and phrases.


James Lyttleton is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Archaeology, University College Cork.


Early European Castles - Aristocracy and Authority AD 800-1200


Author: Oliver Creighton

Paperback: 168 pages

Publisher: Bristol Classical Press                                       

(ISBN-10: 1780930313 ISBN-13: 978-1780930312


Medieval castles were, alongside the great cathedrals, the most recognisable buildings of the medieval world. Closely associated with concepts of justice, lordship and authority as well as military might, castles came to encapsulate the period's very essence. Looking at above and below-ground evidence and examining a wide variety of sites - from towering donjons to earth and timber castles - in different parts of western Europe, this book explores the relationship between early castle building and the emergence of a new aristocracy and investigates the impact of authority on the organisation of the landscape.

Timber Castles


Robert Higham & Philip Barker                       

Paperback: 392 pages                                                    

Publisher: University of Exeter Press                

Date: (31 Aug 2012)                                                            

ISBN-10: 0859898814                                      

ISBN-13: 978-0859898812                           

Price: £38.00


2012 reprint of this standard work on the subject, hugely influential in its field, and with a new preface from Robert Higham to mark twenty years since the book's original publication. Exeter first reissued this much sought-after text in 2004 after the original edition published by Batsford in 1992 quickly went out of print. Some of the greatest medieval castles survive only as earthworks and in pictures and written accounts ...because they were made of timber. Robert Higham and the late Philip Barker, who excavated in detail the timber castle at Hen Domen in Wales, bring together evidence of all kinds to produce the first comprehensive survey of this neglected and little-known type of fortification. From the authors’ 1992 Preface: “The purpose of this book is to restore timber castles to their rightful place in the history of fortification; to show that they were not temporary versions of stone castles, but were formidable strongholds which dominated their surrounding landscapes, sometimes for centuries.”

Excavations at South Mimms Castle Hertfordshire

Authors: John Kent, Derek Renn, and Anthony Streeten.

London and Middlesex Archaeological Society - Special Paper 16, 2013

ISBN 978-0-903290-66-1

Publication date: February 2013

Price: £30 + £2.50 post & packing. Special price £27.00+£2.50 p&p for orders placed by April 1st.

This is the long awaited final report of the archaeological and documentary investigation of a motte-and-bailey castle at South Mimms. Small scale excavations of the 1960s by the late John Kent produced important results, not least in offering a fixed point for pottery and artefacts in the region north of London in the 12th century. A timber tower built at ground level was approached by a bridge through a cutting in the motte which partly covered the tower. The manor’s long ownership by the Mandeville family and their place in national history is explored, and the most likely builder of the castle proposed is Geoffrey II de Mandeville, first earl of Essex between 1136 and 1143.

Cheques, made payable to the ‘London & Middlesex Archaeological Soc’ should be sent to: Karen Thomas, London & Middlesex Archaeological Society, Mortimer Wheeler House, 46 Eagle Wharf Road, London N1 7ED.