All over Munster in Ireland you will see these Norman tower keeps. They are strong, easy for a couple of men to defend. When they were in use a Knight would have lived in this keep with his family and a couple of men at arms.

There would have been another enclosure, like a fence or wall, around the keep. In there you would see things like the stables, maybe a smithy, workshops and some huts for peasants.

The towers were heated by open fires. The walls would have been plastered, inside and out, for insulation and rain protection. Inside there would be straw or rushes on the floor, tapestry on the walls (more insulation).

The knight and his wife might have a bed but most people just slept on the floor of the hall. Usually they stuffed a sack with straw and slept on that, which is why we sometimes call going to bed “hitting the sack” or “getting some sack time”.

Everybody ate together in the hall, the Knight and his family at one end of a table with everybody by rank arranged down to the end of the table. Dogs wandered about inside and were fed from the table.

Mostly the tower was used for storing valuable supplies. It is dark, cold and not a nice place to eat or sleep, so some people my have done their eating and sleeping in a wooden hall beside the keep.