THIS MONTH:

Colum O’Riordan

The summer of 1976, for those of us who remember it, was hot. Apocryphally hot. Legendarily hot. The summer of the 70s. Ireland baked under a prolonged heatwave. Reservoirs dried. The tar in the streets melted. And over the course of that summer the small staff of the National Trust Archive, newly established by Edward McParland and Nicholas Robinson, worked through the soaring temperatures to get the organisation up and running. Based in two rooms of 63 Merrion Square, the home of the Royal Society of the Antiquaries of Ireland, they began commissioning photographic surveys of Irish buildings, accessioned the first donations of architectural drawings, formulated cataloguing systems, and borrowed furniture to fit out a reading room. 

Five decades, two changes of address, and one change of name later and the Irish Architectural Archive celebrates its fiftieth anniversary with a new exhibition and publication. And this, in a surprise to nobody, is my Ireland Architecture Diary highlight for June 2026. 

Pivot Points presents a selection of key objects from the IAA collections, each of which stands as an exemplar of a particular directional shift in the history of development, design, urbanism, and the construction of the built environment across the island of Ireland. Of direct contemporary relevance, Pivot Points sheds light on issues and themes in architecture and planning which, over more than three hundred years, have resulted in the existing built environment. In examining these, it provides insights into how and why things are the way they are, and suggests new stories and directions which can be explored through the IAA collections. 

Pivot Points runs in the IAA Architecture Gallery until the end of 2026, and the book is due to be published at the end of June, while in the First Floor Rooms of 45 Merrion Square the photographic exhibition Paddy Healy’s Dublin continues until the end of August. 

Elsewhere, the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts Annual Exhibition, its 196th, is running across the exhibition spaces of its Ely Place premises. Always a highlight of the cultural year, this iteration features over four hundred and thirty works in paint, sculpture, drawing, print, photography, mixed media and architecture. The latter includes a GKMP Architects model by Paul Durcan of the Central Courtyard of St Senan’s Hospital, Enniscorthy, watercolour studies for Liverpool School of Architecture by O’Donnell + Tuomey, and a proposal for Blackrock Baths by Edwyn James. Architecture adjacent works include paintings by David Dunne, Eugene Conway, Annette Smyth, and Eithne Jordan, the latter a triptych of small interior perspectives, and photographs by Jeanette Lowe and Declan Ryan, amongst others. Finally, there is a portrait by James Hanley of one of the seminal figures in Irish art and architectural history, Prof. Alistair Rowan, former Professor of History of Art in UCD, founder of the History of Art Department in UCC, sometime Principal of the Edinburgh College of Art, initiator of the Buildings of Ireland Charitable Trust and, for a critical period in the 1980s, chair of the Irish Architectural Archive. It’s a pretty good likeness too.  

Mainly running until mid-June, the final year shows of the schools of architecture are bursting with architectural imagination, and as June turns into July, Ireland will assume the mantle of the EU Presidency. An exciting array of architectural events associated with the Presidency will be unveiled in the coming weeks. So, much to see now and engage with, and even more to look forward to.