Lost Ireland: 12 photos that capture forgotten moments of Irish history

“It is an architectural fact of life that buildings, like people, come and go.”

EARLIER THIS YEAR, author, curator and Dublin Castle guide William Derham released a collection of photos which brings the reader through 100 years of forgotten Irish moments.

Through architecture and buildings, some of which no longer exist, Derham documents the changes in Ireland’s landscape.

The 500 images cover everywhere from Cork to Antrim – a ‘snapshot’ of the buildings of Ireland’s past.

“It will hopefully encourage us to be more aware of what has survived, and to think twice before we let it, too, disappear,” Derham says.

Drawing on a variety of photographic archives, the book features the humble mud huts of the transient labourer, the ‘thatched mansions’ of the prosperous farmer, the edifices of industrial innovation and technology, and the grand homes of the well-to-do, including the infamous ‘big house’.

“It is an architectural fact of life that buildings, like people, come and go…Sometimes the death of a building is sudden and unexpected, whether through accident or malice,” writes Colum O’Riordan of the Irish Architectural Archive in his foreword.

Sometimes it comes through the creeping decay of old age, and sometimes buildings are euthanised, pulled down unceremoniously in their prime to make way for something new.

“As with portraits of people, a certain character of each building resonates from the photographs; some we might regard as curious, some we might wish to have known better, some we might even be glad we never met.”

Here’s a quick glance at just a sample of what to expect from the collection:

Dublin, pre-1916

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