The IGS office will close today at 5.00pm for the Easter weekend, re-opening on Tuesday 3rd April at 9.30am.

The IGS bookshop opening hours are: 

Friday 30th: Closed
Saturday 31st: 10.00am to 6.00pm
Sunday 1st: Closed
Monday 2nd: Closed
Tuesday 3rd: 10.00am to 6.00pm

Read more

Wednesday 11th April, Cliffs of Moher Visitor's Centre - The Follies Trust requests the pleasure of your company at a celebration to mark the conservation of the O'Brien Column, Liscannor, Co. Clare, and the launch by Cllr. Tomás MacConmara, Mayor of Clare, Clare County Council, of the publication The Cliffs of Moher & the O'Brien Legacy. 

Light refreshments will be served from 5.30pm, and all are welcome. 

RSVP to info@follies-trust.org before 4th April.

Learn more about the conservation of the O'Brien column, a project supported by the Irish Georgian Society in 2017 and learn more about the work of The Follies Trust on www.follies-trust.org

Image: The Round Table at the Cliffs of Moher, erected by Cornelius O'Brien (19th-century)

Read more

Matt Vesey
RPSG Group PLC
West Pier Business Campus 
Dun Laoghaire
Co Dublin 
A96 N6T7 

8th March 2018

Dear Mr Vesey,

Thank you for your letter of 14th February 2018. The Irish Georgian Society of City Assembly House, 58 South William Street, Dublin welcomes the opportunity to comment on the options for the N2 Slane Bypass. 

Slane, its environs and the wider Boyne Valley area is characterised by a dense concentration of buildings, sites and landscapes of very significant regional, national and international heritage importance, including the World Heritage Site at Brú na Bóinne. The three largest monuments at Brú na Bóinne, the passage graves at Knowth, Newgrange and Dowth, are all prominently located on high ground. From the west, both Knowth and Newgrange are visible from along the Boyne river valley as far as Slane.  
 
Much of Ireland’s most distinguished architectural heritage is to be found in its landscapes, whether it be National Monuments or protected structures, ecclesiastical buildings and ruins or country houses, whether grand or modest in scale. What is distinctive for all of these structures is their siting and setting. Furthermore, their associated lands and/or demesnes had been designed, elaborated, planted and inhabited to enhance the setting. Rivers, loughs, hills, magnificent valleys and mountains are all engaged and embraced whether as framed views or as elements within the designs. 
 
The gardens and designed landscapes of the 17th through to the 19th century were extensions of the plan of the house, to be experienced through all the senses as one inhabited outside spaces or moved along walks or rides. House and landscape were often a single coherent design. Ancient monuments and sacred places along with ruins and churches have been engaged in a visual dialogue across the land with country houses and their designed landscapes, each renewing their importance and redefining their significance.
 
It is worth also remembering that as one of the signatories, Ireland ratified the European Landscape Convention. The convention notes “that the landscape has an important public interest role in the cultural, ecological, environmental and social fields, and constitutes a resource favourable to economic activity and whose protection, management and planning can contribute to job creation”. It acknowledges “that the landscape is an important part of the quality of life for people everywhere: in urban areas and in the countryside, in degraded areas as well as in areas of high quality, in areas recognised as being of outstanding beauty as well as everyday areas”. Furthermore, it puts forward the belief “that the landscape is a key element of individual and social well-being and that its protection, management and planning entail rights and responsibilities for everyone”. The spirit of this Convention is embedded in Ireland’s National Landscape Strategy.
 
Slane, its environs and the wider Boyne Valley area comprise one of Ireland’s most important historic landscapes. The Society submits that the construction of yet a further new road and associated bridge will undermine the integrity of this powerful historic landscape and resulting in potentially profound negative impacts on heritage assets of regional, national and international importance, including protected structures, monuments and national monuments, and the World Heritage Site. This has significant implications for the loss of our shared heritage, but also for the local, regional and national economy.
 
Heritage and Ireland’s historic environment is estimated to account for €1.5 billion or 1% of the State’s Gross Value Added (GVA) and some 2% of overall employment (approximately 65,000 employment positions).  The Heritage Council’s 2011 publication Economic Evaluation of the Historic Environment Ireland sets out the following:
 
“In addition to the contributions of the historic environment sector 'inner wheel' and built heritage construction components, the historic environment also has a significant impact on people's decisions to visit Ireland. 
 
Fáilte Ireland's Visitor Attractions Survey provides much valuable information on visitor attractions in Ireland and highlights for example that no fewer than 4 of Ireland's top 10 paid admission attractions fall within the strict definition of the historic environment…
 
While substantial direct expenditure accrues as a consequence of these and other historic environment attractions and sites (including admissions fees and ancillary spend on souvenirs/ retail etc.), on a fundamental level the historic environment also serves as a central motivating factor for wider tourism to and within Ireland…
 
Notably, results from a recent survey of visitors to Ireland reveal an overwhelming majority alluding to elements of the historic environment as being 'very important' in their consideration of Ireland for a holiday…
 
In summary: 
 

• Including indirect and induced effects, it is estimated that tourism expenditure attributable to the historic environment supports more than 17,000 (17,129) FTE employees in Ireland. 
• In terms of national income, this translates into an economic impact of approximately €650 (645) million towards Ireland's GVA.”

 National policy for the management of our shared heritage assets promotes the principle of minimum intervention. For example, the Architectural Heritage Protection Guidelines for Planning Authorities provide: “good conservation works should aim to do as much as necessary, yet as little as possible”. Given this, given the potential for significant negative economic impacts and given the likelihood of negative impacts on buildings, sites and landscapes of heritage significance, it is unclear why any option other than the option likely to result in least intervention is being considered at this time. The Society respectfully submits that traffic management options should be thoroughly exhausted (e.g. through an appropriate pilot scheme) before any consideration is given to the construction of new road infrastructure. 

 
Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of any further assistance.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Donough Cahill
Executive Director

Read more

As a result of the status red weather warning issued by Met Eireann, and the closure of all public transport in Dublin city, the City Assembly House and the IGS offices will be closed on Thursday 1st March and Friday 2nd March. The IGS office will re-open from 9.30am to 5.00pm on Monday 5th March.

Please email your queries to info@igs.ie and we will endeavour to respond to them as soon as possible next week!

Read more

To mark our 60th anniversary we will be giving a free gift with all memberships purchased from Monday 26th February to Saturday 3rd March. This offer applies in-store or by contacting the office (by phone on 01 679 8675 or by emailing info@igs.ie).

A purchase of a student membership (€15), will come with a bound notebook by Duffy bookbinders, embossed with the Irish Georgian Society logo
A purchase of Individual/Family/Patron/Benefactor membership comes with a choice of the following books (buyer pays postage):

Making Magnificence
The Lost House Revisited
The Hampton Album of Catherine the Great
Monochrome: Painting in Black and White
An Architect Earl
Elihu Yale: Merchant Collector and Patron

Individual membership starts at €60 per year, with student membership costing €15. IGS members are entitled to a range of benefits with their membership card. You will receive a 10% discount in our bookshop, free entry to OPW Historic Properties across Ireland, a 10% discount when making a reservation through the Irish Landmark Trust and special members rates for lectures, study days and tours. 

Join us today to support our work and meet like minded individuals!

Read more

6.00pm, Wednesday 21st March, Irish Architectural Archive, Merrion Square, Dublin 2

The Follies Trust, in partnership with the Friends of the O'Brien column, and the support of the Irish Georgian Society, has completed the conservation of this memorial column in County Clare. SPAB Fellow and stone mason, Eoin Madigan, was the main contractor and in this lecture he will explain the conservation of the O'Brien column from a craftsman's perspective. This talk is free to attend, but donations are gratefully accepted toward the conservation of the column.

Read more