A niche in the façade of Dublin’s Lying-In Hospital, otherwise known as the Rotunda. Designed by Richard Castle, what is now the world’s oldest continuously operating maternity hospital opened on this site in 1757 and takes its popular name from the adjacent Round Room which with accompanying assembly rooms were constructed to raise income for the institution. The hospital’s façade is of Wicklow granite, the use of which is discussed in The Building Site in Eighteenth-Century Ireland written by the late Arthur Gibney (and edited for publication by Livia Hurley and Edward McParland). While a certain amount of investigation has been conducted into the architecture of the Georgian period, the process of construction during the same era is relatively little studied. This is what makes Gibney’s book so fascinating: he has studied contemporary records to discover how buildings both public and private were put together at the time. The first two chapters examine who was responsible for what on a building site, and the various form of contractual arrangements employed whenever work was undertaken. Regarding the latter, several options were available, some of which involved fixing the final cost in advance (carrying an attendant risk that contractors keen to make a good profit might skimp on materials and finish) while what was known as a measured contract ‘paid each trade separately for measured quantities of work based on agreed rates.’ The potential financial gains to be made by builders, especially in large-scale public schemes, were exposed following a parliamentary enquiry in 1752 into a national barracks building programme: this led to the dismissal of the Surveyor General Arthur Jones Nevill in 1752 (he was expelled from Parliament the following year).
Gibney follows with chapters looking at different areas of the building trade covering carpentry, joinery and the timber trade, wall construction, brickwork and stone, roofing and glazing, plastering and painting. The emergence of builder architects like George Semple and the Ensor brothers is also considered; as Gibney observes, ‘Eighteenth-century craftsmen in Irish cities were essentially part of a middle-class milieu with access to the same opportunities as members of the merchant community.’ By the book’s conclusion, the reader has a full understanding of how buildings were constructed in the 18th century and what characteristics distinguished them from equivalent structures in Britain and elsewhere (it transpires the differences are most immediately evident in the way floors were made). Gibney’s work is a most welcome addition to the field of Irish architectural studies and helps to provide a fuller picture of building work in this country during the Georgian period.

The Building Site in Eighteenth-Century Ireland by Arthur Gibney (edited by Livia Hurley and Edward McParland) is published by Four Courts Press.