Delegatres and students gathered outside Holy Hill House, Strabane

When asked to write about my highlights of attending the UAHS / IGS “Conservation Without Frontiers” Summer School in Derry / Donegal as a student scholar, after such a packed few days my first thought was where do I start? 

Following on from the launch event in Donegal County Museum, day two began in the beautiful surroundings of the Guildhall, such an iconic building for the City of Derry. Ronan O’Donnell spoke about what the Walled City Partnership has accomplished in Derry. Given an initially quite small amount of money, the scale of what it has achieved so far is hugely impressive. In the afternoon my group had a very wet walking tour of the Walls and Ebrington Barracks with Manus Deery from the Historic Environment Division (Department of Communities). Personally, what I found most useful was not just seeing the renovation work that has taken place in the city, but having an opportunity to discuss with Manus the conservation arguments and the processes that had led to a specific decision being made, this really was fascinating. A superb dinner followed in a former church building now known as the “The Glassworks” and a presentation from Yaima Gil from Cuba on the regeneration of Old Havana.

One of the things I took away from our time in Derry, was the number of older buildings that are now used as small museums or for cultural events or concerts by people of all ages and backgrounds. Whilst these buildings are very much part of the past of Derry, they are also at the core of the city’s present and demonstrate the role built heritage is playing in shaping a new narrative for a city that has seen so much conflict.

Day three was based in Donegal. One of the highlights of the day was a practical demonstration on the use of lime by Sean Brogan and hot lime mortars by SPAB Fellow Eoin Madigan at Trenagh House c.1780. I could have spent all day here. Eoin mentioned that he is planning some SPAB Ireland events, so hopefully we will meet again.

We were also fortunate enough to be given a tour of Fort Stewart, a Georgian country house c.1760 that remains in private ownership. A very different experience to visiting a typical house open to the public, a much more intimate feeling of visiting a family home. We then had an opportunity to visit the beautiful Ramelton, followed by the toughest pub quiz I have ever participated in, held at Conway’s Bar.

Fort Stewart (c. 1760), Co. Donegal

On the final day we visited Holy Hill House, another privately owned family home before heading to Sion Mills stables and a presentation on their development from Karen Latimer (Hearth). We then had the results of the student competition. I was awarded first place in the student competition for my development proposal for the Boom Hall site in Derry. I was genuinely stunned given the number of talented students.

Winners of the Student Design Competition, pictured with Kevin V. Mulligan (CWF Summer School Director), Primrose Wilson (President, UAHS) and Joe Gallagher (Heritage Officer, Donegal County Council) - Emma McGarrity (University of Ulster), Steven Playford (Heriot Watt University), Katherine Baldwin (University College Dublin), Sinéad Scullion (University College Dublin, not pictured) and Chris Hamill (University of Cambridge).

I am currently studying for a Masters in Building Conservation at Heriot Watt University, this is a distance learning course, so the overall highlight really of the Summer School was to be surrounded by so many people with a shared passion for our built heritage and whilst I haven’t been able to mention every speaker or everywhere we visited, I would personally like to thank the people who took the time away from their jobs, opened their homes or buildings to us and the amount of work put into the event by staff and volunteers of UAHS / IGS, and finally for the superb hospitality we received everywhere we went, I have never eaten so many buns!

Steven Playford, Heriot Watt University

View more images of the summer school on our facebook page.

The 2017 CWF Summer School was made possible through the support of Donegal County Council, Derry & Strabane Council, The Heritage Council, the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, The British Council, Consarc Conservation and the Esme Mitchell Trust.

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The Irish Georgian Society Review is richly illustrated with content on decorative arts, conservation, current affairs and Irish heritage issues. Published annually in October, it is distributed among our 2,500+ members across Ireland, the UK and USA. Taking out an advertisement in the IGS Review is an opportunity to promote your business to an interested target audience.

The Irish Georgian Society Review focuses on specialist topics relating to the work of the Irish Georgian Society, as well as including illustrated articles on architecture and the decorative arts, commissioned from academics and conservation professionals. The magazine is elegantly designed and you can read past issues of the IGS Review online (via this link) to get an idea of content and format.

The IGS Review is made available at various IGS events throughout the year (2017/18), such as our annual seminars, study days and the Dublin Horse Show, and all year round in our bookshop at the City Assembly House on South William Street.

Download our 2017 advertising rates here and advert specifications here.

Contact Zoë Coleman (zoe.coleman@igs.ie) for more details before Friday 11th August.

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Sir David Davies, President of the Irish Georgian Society officially launched Volume XIX of Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies last week.

Volume XIX is edited by Dr/ Finola O'Kane Crimmins and includes contributions from:

Sir David Davies: Foreword

Alec Cobbe: Sounds of Saxony – getting closer to Bach: Instruments by Ferdinand Weber in the Cobbe Collection

Melanie Hayes: Sir Gustavus Hume (1677 – 1731): courtly connections and architectural connoisseurship in the early eighteenth century

Jessie Castle and Gillian O’Brien: ‘I am building a house’: Nano Nagle’s Georgian convents

Livia Hurley: Death in the garden: Patrick Byrne’s mortuary chapel at Goldenbridge Cemetery, Dublin

Anne Casement: ‘A true Lady Chatellaine’: Frances Anne Vane-Tempest and the building of Garron Tower, part 1

Finola O’ Kane: Arthur Young’s published and unpublished illustrations for ‘A Tour in Ireland 1776-1779’

Volume XIX, the Journal of the Irish Georgian Society can be purchased instore or online from the IGS bookshop.

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IGS is undergoing a server upgrade from 4pm today (1 June) until 12pm tomorrow (2 June). The office may not be able to answer your queries as our servers will be offline until then. Thank you for your understanding.

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Book of the Month: June 2017
Capability Brown - Designing the British Landscape by John Phibbs

In celebration of his 300th year, a definitive survey of Capability Brown’s most famous gardens and landscapes in Britain. Widely acknowledged as the most influential landscape designer of his age, Lancelot "Capability" Brown was to England what Frederick Law Olmsted was to America—responsible for shaping the very ideal of the nation’s parkland. Brown’s ambition was to bring out of a landscape the best of its potential rather than impose his own ideas upon it. His designs are organic, weaving gestures of color and perspective into the features that the country already afforded. So natural are his designs, and so perfectly do they complement the houses within them, that for many a Capability Brown landscape is the epitome of the English estate. His gardens and parklands—as much as the houses themselves—would become icons of British country life. Published to coincide with the tercentenary of his birth, this remarkable book illuminates fifteen of Brown’s most celebrated landscapes. To love the great English estates is to love the settings with which Brown surrounded them—from idyllic parklands at Milton and Broadlands to structured landscapes around iconic houses at Blenheim, Burghley, Wakefield, and Chatsworth. With photography commissioned for the book, and including rarely seen archival drawings that shed light on Brown’s process, this book serves as a guide to Britain’s most beloved landscapes and an exploration of the masterful mind behind their creation.

For the month of June, you can purchase this book instore and online at the special price of €45 (RRP €56)

Published by Rizzoli

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The Royal Irish Academy, Ireland’s leading body of experts in the sciences and humanities, admitted 18 new Members on Friday (26th May). Since 1785 membership of the Academy has been awarded to persons who have attained distinction by their unique contributions to education and research. Finola O'Kane Crimmins (UCD), Board member of the Irish Georgian Society and Editor of Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies was among the 18 new members admitted last Friday. There are now 580 Members of the Royal Irish Academy. Those elected are entitled to use the designation ‘MRIA’ after their name. 

​Professor Peter Kennedy, President of the Royal Irish Academy with newly elected UCD academics: Professor Jennifer McElwain, Professor Finola O'Kane Crimmins and Professor Aidan O’Sullivan

Professor Peter Kennedy with Professor Finola O'Kane Crimmins

 

Professor Peter Kennedy, President of the Royal Irish Academy, said Ireland ‘should be immensely proud of these women and men who have brought international academic distinction to our country. As Members of the Academy, they will strengthen the Academy’s capacity to provide expert advice on Higher Education and Research policy’.

Images courtesy of the Royal Irish Academy/Johnny Bambury.

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