The vision of the Irish Georgian Society is to conserve, protect and foster an interest and a respect for Ireland’s architectural heritage and decorative arts.
Learn more about the IGS
COVID-19 Update for Irish Georgian Society - The City Assembly House and IGS offices reopened on Monday 6 July. Staff can be contacted by phone and/or email. Our current exhibition 'Dublin Fragments' reopened on 6 July. Our opening hours are 10.00am to 5.00pm, Monday to Friday.
(Image courtesy of Nicola Woods)
Dublin Fragments: The Pearson Collection at the City Assembly House, 6-30 July 2020: This exhibition of architectural fragments and installations presents a dazzling display of Dublin craftsmanship. Today, most significant buildings are protected, thus it is (or should be) impossible to salvage such artefacts as these. Learn more.
Traditional Building Skills Register: Our TBS Register was established to ensure that those undertaking conservation work can identify craftspeople and professionals with good conservation expertise. Find accredited architects, skilled craftsmen and contractors based in Ireland on our free online database.
City Assembly House wins 2019 RIAI Award for Adaptation and Re-use: Conservation - Marking the 30th year of its prestigious architecture awards, RIAI announced 23 Award Winners across 14 categories. The building architects were Consarc Design Group Ltd. Read more.
(Image: Nicola Woods)
IGS Conservation and Original Drawing Awards - The winners of the 2019 IGS Conservation and Original Drawing Awards were announced by Livia Hurley in a ceremony at the City Assembly House on 9 October. The awards were presented to the winners by IGS Chairman Michael Wall. Read more.
City Assembly House - a history: Built by the Society of Artists in the 1760s and '70s, the City Assembly House has since served as Dublin's City Hall, as the founding home of the Conservatory of Music, and as a museum. Today it is being restored as the new home of the Irish Georgian Society.
13.07.2020
IGS visiting the Lion's Gate at Mote Park with Mote Park Conservation Group, prior to its conservation
The following text was written by David Molloy of Roscommon Heritage and featured in the 2016 edition of the Irish Georgian Society Review.
03.07.2020
The Irish Georgian Society offices and the City Assembly House will reopen on Monday 6 July. The safety of our visitors and staff is our paramount concern and is central to our reopening plans. We will be enforcing social distancing measures and limiting the number of visitors to the building at any one time. We are undertaking a number of social distancing measures, details of which are available below.
Hand sanitiser for visitors is provided in the entrance hall and exhibition room.
03.07.2020
Dublin Fragments: The Pearson Collection
6 to 31 July 2020
Open Monday to Friday, 10.00am to 5.00pm
City Assembly House, 58 South William Street, Dublin 2
#DublinFragments
This Spring the Irish Georgian Society are delighted to present Dublin Fragments: The Pearson Collection curated by artist Peter Pearson.
29.06.2020
Design for the entrance front of Leinster House by Richard Castle (Image courtesy of the Irish Architectural Archive)
The Irish Georgian Society congratulates Darragh O'Brien TD on his appointment as Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and wishes him every success in delivering the Built Heritage objectives of the new Programme for Government.
The Society welcomes the commitments made in the Programme for Government to Ireland’s built heritage though fulfilling these effectively will require the provision of necessary funding and other resources. Of note is the support pledged for conservation grants programmes, for the roles of Heritage Officers and the objective to appoint Conservation & Repurposing Officers in each county. It is hoped that the goal of devising an apprenticeship programme for traditional building skills will be prioritised and that plans to expand the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage will build on the excellent work done over the last two decades. The IGS is also encouraged by the document’s goal to publish and implement a new heritage policy through Heritage Ireland 2030.
24.06.2020
Strokestown House, Co. Roscommon
Here is a side of Strokestown rarely seen, a house so well known since its acquisition in 1979, and familiar now largely as the centre for the commemoration of the Great Irish Famine, with a national museum to the tragedy housed in the outbuildings. A lopsided, creeper-draped bow, filled with big light-giving windows, it represents the elegant terminal wall of a Regency drawing room, an appendage made as part of the alterations to the house in 1819. Strokestown is the first great Palladian house west of the Shannon, where even by 1832 ‘none other approaches near it, whether in extent of demesne or grandeur of mansion’, and yet even with the rare survival of its archive the building history has been poorly documented. It is usually dated to about 1730, and attributed to Richard Castle for Thomas Mahon, although family tradition has always insisted, improbably, that its construction began in 1696, the date carved on a stone preserved at the house that most likely belongs to a predecessor.
22.06.2020
Landscape with Bathers, George Mullins, oil on canvas (Irish Heritage Trust)
George Mullins (1756-c.1786) was a pupil of James Mannin in the Dublin Society Drawing School of Landscape and Ornament around 1756, George Mullins was first employed in the Wyse manufactory in Waterford, painting the lids of tins and snuffboxes. After returning to Dublin, he married the proprietress of an alehouse in Temple bar and lived there for some years. During which time, he submitted three landscapes to the first Society of Artists' Exhibition in 1765 and continued to exhibit landscapes with them up until 1769. In 1768 he was employed by Lord Charlemont to complete four Italian-style landscapes for his home in Marino. He traveled to London in 1770 and exhibited with the Royal Academy until 1775.