Niamh NicGhabhann

BA Hons (TCD)

Postgraduate student, PhD candidate IRCHSS Reconstructions of the Gothic Past
Provost’s House Stables
Irish Art Research Centre
Dept. of the History of Art,
Trinity College,
Dublin 2

E-mail: nicghanr@tcd.ie

Memberships

• Member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland
• Member of the Irish Georgian Society
• Member of the Society for the Study of Nineteenth Century Ireland
• Member of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain
• Member of the Association of Art Historians

Research Interests:

• The restoration and conservation of medieval architecture. Art and architecture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Ireland
• Revivalism and historicism in architecture, particularly medievalism
• The historiography of architectural history, Antiquarianism in Ireland.Landscape art, Victorian and 20th century Irish art, contemporary painting, sculpture and film art.

Academic Awards/Fellowships:

• Trinity College Dublin Graduate Travel Fund Award, 2010
• Desmond Guinness Scholarship Award, 2010, awarded by the Irish Georgian Society
• Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Doctoral Research Award 2008 - 2011

• Homan Potterton Award, TCD, 2007
• Anne Crookshank Award, TCD, 2006
• Entrance Exhibition Award, TCD, 2006

Conferences and Sessions forthcoming:

• Co-Convenor: 'Writing Irish Art History', a student-led seminar at TRIARC, Irish Art Research Centre at Trinity College Dublin, Department of History of Art, TCD, 20 November 2010
• Co-Convenor: 'Writing Irish Art Histories', Association of Art Historians 2011, University of Warwick, 31 March - 22 April.
• Co-Convenor: 'Environments of Health and Hygiene': The architecture and landscapes of health in nineteenth and twentieth century Ireland - an interdisciplinary seminar on future research", time and date TBC, Spring 2011

Research Programmes:

My research is part of the IRCHSS-funded project, ‘Reconstructions of the Gothic Past’. In the scholarship on Irish medieval architecture to date, relatively little emphasis has been placed on the ways in which buildings have been adapted, or in some cases completely transformed in response to social and cultural demands. The aim of this research project is to examine (a) modifications undertaken in the middle ages in response to changes in economic conditions and religious practice; (b) post-Reformation alterations when monastic buildings were converted to alternative uses; (c) revivals during the seventeenth century when ruined churches were restored and returned as places of worship; and (d) ‘restorations’ in the modern era: this includes the complete re-instatement of ancient buildings as places of worship and, significantly, the adaptation of ancient ruins to suit the demands of tourism or the modern ‘heritage’ industry. Through the study and analysis of structures, images and texts, this project aims to explore a more ‘complete’ history of medieval architecture in Ireland.

Selected Publications:

• ‘Reconstruction of the Gothic Past – Cultures of Conservation’, Artefact, the journal of the Irish Association of Art Historians, Issue 3, 2009
• ‘Ancient and Modern’, Nano Reid and Gerard Dillon, 2009, pp. 43-61, (Exhibition catalogue, Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, 2009.)
• ‘A Delicate Line’, in House Projects_artworks. documents.analysis., House Projects, Dublin, 2008
• Editor, Museum Ireland 2008 and 2009, the annual publication of the Irish Museums Association (external)

I have contributed reviews to Museum Ireland and to Circa magazine’s online forum (external).

Selected Conference Papers and Public Lectures:

• 'Buildings, memory and identity in nineteenth century Munster', (kindly presented on my behalf by Caroline McGee), People, Places and Memory, Moore Institute, NUI Galway, 27 August 2010
• 'Ruins in the landscape: the aesthetics of antiquarianism in nineteenth century Ireland', William Wilde Seminar, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, 3 - 4 June 2010
• ‘Chapel Villages and Estate Towns: medieval buildings in settlement development in late eighteenth and nineteenth century Ireland’, International Medieval Congress, Leeds, 12- 15 July 2010
• ‘The architecture of the Franciscan Order in the Nineteenth Century – ruins and restorations’, Donatus Mooney Study Day, Mícheál Ó Cléirigh Institute for the Study of Irish History and Civilisation, University College Dublin, 30 April, 2010
• ‘A complex metaphor - developing a national canon of architectural form in 19th century Ireland’, Association of Art Historians Annual 2010 Conference, Glasgow, 15 - 17 April 2010
• ‘Ruins in the Landscape’, National Gallery of Ireland Research Study Day, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, March 2010
• ‘Nineteenth Century Ireland: Conservation and its Context’, Irish History Students Association Annual Conference, Trinity College Dublin, February 2010
• Research Methodology Seminar, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Trinity College Dublin, February, 2010
• 'Ancient and Modern - exploring the imagery of Irish antiquities in the work of Nano Reid and Gerard Dillon', Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, February 2010 and the F.E. McWilliam Gallery, Banbridge, March, 2010.
• ‘Gothic in Ireland: Ruins and the improving landlord in 19th century Ireland’, Gothic and its Legacies symposium, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, December 2009
• ‘Ruins and the improving landlord in the early 19th century’, Reconstructions of the Gothic Past Symposium, TRIARC, Trinity College Dublin, June 2009.
• ‘Reconstructions of the Gothic Past: Cultures of Conservation’, Irish Association of Art Historians Study Morning, Newman House, April 2009.