Suburbs and Sacraments: Building Catholic Dublin, 1960-80

About this talk:

In her talk - entitled ‘Suburbs and Sacraments: Building Catholic Dublin, 1960-80’ - Ellen will share some ongoing research into the relationship between the Irish Catholic Church (namely the Dublin Archdiocese) and the built environment during the heady decades of expansion, from 1940 to c.1980. Richly illustrated and in some instances, barely cooked, Ellen’s presentation will venture into the territory of Planned Giving campaigns, the influence of Liberation Theology on Irish social services emerging in the 1980s, the architectural agency of the parish priest and the maverick nun; as well as issues around architectural style, perception and reception to modernism in Ireland’s Catholic church design. Traditional methods of archive and site investigation are joined by alternative means like participatory drawing and oral history workshops; to the monograph and academic paper, Ellen adds other media of film, radio talks and exhibition.

--------------------------------

About the speaker:

Dr Ellen Rowley is an architectural humanities teacher and writer, embedded in 20th-century Irish architecture. She is Lecturer in Modern Irish Architecture in UCD’s School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, where she teaches architectural history and culture programmes. Being privileged with an education in Trinity College Dublin and the University of Cambridge, she is committed to widening access to architectural education in Ireland. Before UCD, Ellen was the White Post-Doctoral Fellow in Irish Art at the Trinity Irish Art Research Centre (TRIARC) and an Irish Research Council Post-Doc fellow with Dublin City Council, where she co-developed 14 Henrietta Street, Dublin’s tenement museum with DCC Heritage Office. During her time as the Broad Curriculum lecturer in Art and Society (2003-8) in the Department of History of Art and Architecture, TCD, she won a Provost’s Teaching Award for Excellence in teaching. In 2020 she edited and presented, with Cliodhna Ni Anluain, the Davis Now radio lecture series, Making Home (RTE Radio 1). And in 2023, she made her first film, Making Dust, with the art practice, the Department of Ultimology.

Ellen’s research into Modernism and Irish architecture focuses on themes of Catholic patronage and suburban development; obsolescence and mid-century buildings today; housing and everyday architecture in Ireland, 1940–80. Since 2011, Ellen has led the Dublin City Council research project on the 20th-century architecture of Dublin City culminating in the three volume series More than Concrete Blocks (2016, 2019, 2023). She publishes widely, including her monograph on Dublin’s housing histories, Housing, Architecture and the Edge Condition with Routledge in 2018; and was co-editor of the landmark series, Art and Architecture of Ireland, published by Yale Uni. Press in 2014, as well as UCD’s architectural history of its campus, Making Belfield (UCD Press), in 2020. In 2017, Ellen was awarded honorary membership of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland for services to Irish architecture.

--------------------------------

About the series:

The Oak Room Heritage Talks free public lecture series aims to showcase heritage projects, topics and new research across Dublin city, and is an action of the Dublin City Strategic Heritage Plan 2023 - 2028.

Location: Oak Room, Mansion House, Dawson Street Dublin 2