big house

A penitentiary.

noun

A place for the confinement of persons in lawful detention: brig, house of correction, jail, keep, penitentiary, prison. Informal lockup, pen. Slang can, clink, cooler, coop, hoosegow, joint, jug, pokey, slammer, stir. Chiefly Regional calaboose. See free/unfree.

big house, a theme in Anglo-Irish literature referring to the big houses of the ascendancy, reflecting the anxieties and uncertainties of the Protestant landowning class in their decline, from the late 18th cent., through Catholic Emancipation, the Tithe War, the Famine, the Land League, and the growth of modern militant Irish nationalism, to the founding of the Irish State. Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent (1800) initiated enduring conventions in Anglo-Irish literature: the decaying house and a declining gentry family; the improvident, often absentee, landlord; and the rise of a predatory middle class. Such conventions were developed in the novels of Charles Lever, William Carleton, Sheridan Le Fanu, and Charles Robert Maturin; and in W. B. Yeats's poetry and drama. Other writers to explore this theme included: George Moore, Somerville and Ross, Elizabeth Bowen, Lennox Robinson, Sean O'Casey, Brendan Behan, Padraic Colum, Sean O'Faolain, Joyce Cary, Mervyn Wall, Julia O'Faolain, Brian Friel, John McGahern, Jennifer Johnston, William Trevor, Molly Keane, Aidan Higgins, and John Banville.