A talk by Dr Frederick O'Dwyer, hosted by the DCC Heritage Office. Part-funded by the Heritage Council.

About the Talk

While the Royal Hospital Kilmainham – designed by William Robinson, surveyor general, and erected by James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond – is regarded as being the first great classical building in Ireland, the sources of its plan and its quirky design details, with Gothic and Mannerist elements, have never been clear. This paper will discuss the influences on it of the Amsterdam architect Hendrick de Keyser (1565–1621), the posthumously published book of his designs Architectura Moderna (1631), and the possibility that members of his family, known to James since the 1630s, may have been involved in its design and construction. The Butlers’ almost continuous association with the extended de Keyser family spanned seventy years, beginning with the carving of a tomb in Kilkenny by Hendrick’s son-in-law Nicholas Stone in 1614.

About the Speaker

Dr Frederick O'Dwyer is an architectural historian, a graduate of DIT and TCD. He joined the public service in 1981 and retired as a senior architect in 2017. He is the author of three books Lost Dublin (1981), The Architecture of Deane and Woodward (1997) and Irish Hospital Architecture – a Pictorial History (1997) and numerous peer-reviewed articles on architecture and conservation. As an OPW district architect in the 1980s he looked after the Royal Hospital, where he restored the Garden House, attributed to Edward Lovett Pearce. His first article on it, ‘Early views of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham’, with Vivien Igoe, was published in the Irish Arts Review Yearbook 1988. His most recent paper, on the design influences on the Royal Hospital, was published in Irish Heritage Studies in 2025.

About the Series

The Dublin City 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 2024 - 2029.

The series has received grant support from the Heritage Council.

This talk will be recorded and made available online at a later date.

ISL interpretation will be provided.

Image courtesy of the Irish Architectural Archive.

Description supplied by the event organiser.