The most famous architectural practice of the 19th century in Ireland was the partnership of Sir Thomas Deane and Benjamin Woodward. The Deanes were an old Cork firm of architects and builders dating back to the middle of the 18th century. The author here refers, in the first chapter, to Mrs Elizabeth Deane, mother of Thomas, who carried on her husband's practice of builder and architect after he died in 1806. This formidable woman expanded the business and was obviously famous in Cork since she is celebrated in a ballad called The Town of Passage. The young Thomas designed his first building in 1811 at the age of 19, the Cork Commercial Buildings on South Mall.
The author of this monumental study tells the story of this firm in extraordinary detail right from the beginning of the century. Most earlier writings on Deane and Woodward have concentrated on Woodward, and the Deanes tend to be ignored. O'Dwyer's book corrects that trend. He has written the definitive study of this most influential practice.
Benjamin Woodward joined the firm in 1846 after Deane had won the commission for Queen's College, Cork, in the previous year. The two major works of the partnership, the Museum Building in Trinity College, Dublin, and the Oxford Museum, are dealt with in great detail but a huge amount of new material has been unearthed by the patient research of the author into the Oxford building. The fascinating story of the enormously talented, and incorrigibly unconventional, mason sculptors, the O'Sheas, is recounted, as is a reassessment of the role of Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites, with a wealth of new material.
The often repeated story that James O'Shea was peremptorily dismissed from his job on the Oxford Museum by the Master for carving monkeys on a window arch is, sadly, dismissed as a later romanticising by Dr Ackland, a fellow of All Souls. The author has discovered evidence that the O'Sheas continued to work on the Oxford carvings long after the famously quoted "Parrhots and Owwls! Parrhots and Owwls! Members of Convocation!" outburst by an excited O'Shea, high up on the scaffolding.
This book is a superb model of what a scholarly publication should be: the list of over five hundred illustrations has clear sources for each item; there are fifty-five pages of closely packed notes, some of which are essays in themselves; while the bibliography includes a useful list of the relevant Parliamentary Papers. For quick reference there is also a separate index of all of the works of the practice, including the subsequent work of T.N. Deane who carried on after the deaths of both Sir Thomas and Woodward.
While the earlier chapters of the book deal in detail with the larger buildings of the firm, a long final section is described as a Catalogue of Smaller Commissions. Here we can find a host of splendidly individual designs, many from the highly talented Woodward, such as the picturesque large house, Glandore, in Monkstown, Co Dublin, and the lovely little courthouse in Dundrum, Co Dublin.
Quite a few of the buildings have long been demolished, unappreciated as they were at the time, but the death and destruction of the beautiful St Ann's School and adjoining Assembly Rooms in Molesworth Street, Dublin, as late as 1978 is unforgivable. Despite strenuous calls for conservation and an occupation by architectural students, the buildings were razed, the way having been cleared for this by the decision, in 1974, by the Minister for Local Government, James Tully, to grant permission, on appeal, for an office block on the site. A comparison of the resultant banal, brick lump with the illustration of the Woodward design shows the loss the street has suffered from that misguided political decision.
Sean Rothery is an architect and writer. His books include The Shops of Ireland, Ireland and the New Architecture and A Field Guide to the Buildings of Ireland.
