26.10.2021, 18:30 P.M.
‘A large, handsome town’: Drogheda's architecture in the long eighteenth century by Dr Aisling Durkan
In 1708, Samuel Molyneux described Drogheda as ‘a pretty large town, larger houses, and every way like Dublin than any one I have seen in Ireland’. Indeed, Drogheda was a key entrepôt for commerce between Britain and Ireland in the period, and was home to an ambitious mercantile elite who were responsible for the construction of impressive domestic and civic architecture. This lecture will explore Drogheda’s significant contribution to Irish architecture during the long eighteenth century.
Dr Aisling Durkan is a recent PhD graduate of the History of Art and Architecture in Trinity College Dublin. Her thesis, entitled 'Regional splendour and mercantile ambition: the Drogheda town house in the eighteenth century', focused on the predominantly mercantile domestic architecture of Drogheda, placing it in the wider context of eighteenth-century Ireland and Britain. A chapter on her work is due to appear next year entitled ‘Domestic architecture in eighteenth-century Drogheda’ in a book due out in 2022 called Louth: history and society. Interdisciplinary essays on the history of an Irish county (eds Annaleigh Margey, Conor Brady and Noel Ross: Series ed. William Nolan).
Image: Tholsel, West Street, Dorgheda (1770. George Darley)
This pre-recorded Zoom talk will be issued at 6.30pm on Tuesday 26th October and will be available to watch for seven days from issue. Talks cannot be reissued after the seven day period.
This is the fourth talk in the Irish Cities in the Georgian Era: architecture and urban morphology series.
Supported by the Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage.
