Birr's Disappearing Bastion

Walking around the former military barracks in Crinkill, the entranceways are arguably the most visually striking remains of the site, marked by the protruding bastions built out from the boundary wall.

Bastion along southern wall.

A bastion is a defensive structure projecting outward from the perimeter or curtain wall, designed to give soldiers a position for enfilading fire via loopholes. The ones at Birr are four‑sided and contain between two and three loopholes, with additional loopholes built into the perimeter wall itself.

When construction ended in 1812, the barracks had five main entrances: one each on the northern, eastern, and southern sides, with two on the eastern side. Today, each of these gateways is protected by one of these bastions. In addition, a slightly larger bastion stands halfway along the eastern wall, where the schoolmaster’s house once stood.

All the entrances are protected by a bastion — except one. On the eastern side, the southerly entrance has no bastion at all. This raises an obvious question: was a bastion ever constructed here, and if so, why was it demolished? To answer that, we first need to establish when the bastions were built.

Eastern wall with no bastion.

The 6‑inch Ordnance Survey map for the area, surveyed in the late 1830s, shows no bastions at all, confirming that these structures were added later. Examining the bastions in person also reveals that they are simply built up against the boundary wall; none of their masonry is bonded into it, with the exception of the larger eastern bastion. Both observations strongly suggest that the bastions were later additions.

So when were they built, and why? Our first clue appears on 22 June 1843, in the Westmeath Guardian and Longford News‑Letter, which states:

“Lieut Miller of the Royal Engineer corps ar-rived here on, Sunday last, and extensive defensive preparations are being made in the garrison, under his supervision and direction. Port-holes are made in various parts of the other wall, and ar-rangements are in contemplation to make the posi-tion a very strong defence against any attack. There are fifteen masons at work at present.”

This is further supported by the Freeman’s Journal, which on 18 September 1843 reported:

“THE FOLLY DEMONSTRATION

An officer connect with the engineer department has arrived in Parsonstown, and the military barracks are immediately to be put into a state of defence; three hundred workmen are to be immediately employed, and the works to be completed with all haste. Upwards of three hundred tons of coal have laid in during the past week, and it is said a large quantity of provisions are to arrive here in a few days.”

Any doubt about what these defensive works involved is resolved by an article in The Tipperary Vindicator on 3 August 1844. The editor, describing a visit to the Sliebh (sic) Bloom Mountains that brought him close to Birr Barracks, wrote: “The peaceful occupation of peasantry, engaged as they were in their various farm-ing avocations, strongly contrasted with the loopholed walls and projecting bastions wherewith the military quarters in Ireland have been fortified within the last year.”

The reason behind the construction of these bastions was almost certainly the unrest in Ireland in 1843, driven by Daniel O’Connell’s Repeal agitation. The British responded by strengthening defensive measures at garrisons across the country. Birr was one of them.

The Repeal agitation of 1843 was not a routine political campaign but the largest mass mobilisation Ireland had ever seen. Daniel O’Connell’s “monster meetings” routinely drew tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, in disciplined, peaceful assemblies that demonstrated how quickly the population could be organised. To the British government, already anxious after recent unrest in Canada and the wider empire, this sudden display of national unity looked like the infrastructure of a potential uprising.

No attack or insurrection ever came, and the bastions were never used for their intended purpose.

By the late nineteenth century, however, warfare, tactics, and artillery had changed. The bastions were now obsolete. At the same time, firearms technology was advancing rapidly, and by the 1880s the standard rifle throughout the Empire was the single‑shot, breech‑loading Martini‑Henry. Range practice for the Birr garrison took place at the rifle range on Killaun bog.

During this period, gallery or Morris Tube ranges were becoming popular, essentially small‑bore indoor shooting. The Morris Tube, introduced in 1881 and adopted in 1883, was a small rifled insert for the Martini‑Henry barrel that allowed the use of smaller‑calibre ammunition. This made in‑barracks marksmanship training possible without using full‑calibre rounds.

A gallery range for Birr was in development when the Irish Times reported the following on 22 September 1884: “Colonel Penton, commanding at Birr, has been appointed president of a board of officers to as-semble there on the 22nd instant to select a site for a shooting gallery for practice with Morris’s Tubes.”

The Freeman’s Journal on 16 June 1886 reported its completion: “A board of officers will assemble at Birr at 11am on Friday next to inspect and report upon a Morris Tube shooting gallery recently erected at that station.”

The range was constructed along the eastern wall of the barracks, which required the demolition of the bastion and the permanent blocking of the gateway. The gallery remained in use for much of the barracks’ remaining life and was expanded at some point. In addition to Morris Tube practice, the range was also used for revolver training.

Image from 1920s show eastern entrance of barracks with missing bastion, blocked up entrance gate and extended gallery range. Image via Mick Dolphin on Flickr.

After the destruction of the barracks, the gallery range was one of the earliest parts of the site to disappear. Today, without digging into archival sources, it would be hard to know the range was ever there, if not for Birr's disappearing bastion.