This project and brief are informed by the historical context of the Claddagh, the material flows that are existing within the community, the role of craft and skills that existed in the community for hundreds of years. These skills have all but been forgotten in the modern community. Boat building, fishing, weaving, thatching, carpentry, vernacular construction methods. The culture and customs of the Claddagh are unique within an Irish context; a gaelic enclave with a culture distinct from that of the city of Galway, a local economy and industry built around the fishing of the bay, along with customs and rituals that are also endemic to this fishing village on the Eastern banks of the River Corrib. The Claddagh Village is located at the estuary of the River Corrib, where the River meets the Bay beyond. Renowned for their industrious spirit the people of the Claddagh applied the skills honed from the fishing industry in alternative manner, with small industry’s appearing in the Village in the late 19th century. Setting itself within a hypothetical present day, this project imagines that the Claddagh Village was, in-part spared from demolition and imagines what would become of this village today. Examining the crafts and industries of the village, this project focuses on the ‘Rafferty Woolen Mills’, located in the Garrai, the last area of the Claddagh to be demolished in the late 1940’s. This is the context which this project is set within, provocatively re-imagining the fate of the Garrai and of that of the Claddagh village. This thesis does not endeavor to rebuild or to re-establish the Claddagh. Instead this thesis employs a ficto-critical narrative to shed light on a lost community, a lost culture and to illustrate how lessons for today’s world can be gleaned from the stories of the past.
Project Year: 2025
Meitheal Distillery: A Holistic Approach to Integrating Town, Community and Industry
Meitheal Distillery reimagines the role of industry in the town as a centre of community life rather than a privatised operation. Drawing on the Irish tradition of Meitheal, when communities would work collectively, this project explores how whiskey production can be meaningfully integrated into the social, spatial, and economic fabric of a rural town.
The project stemmed from my own interest in the role of the pub in the community and I drew from my own experiences running a family owned pub. I wanted to explore how this unusual setting was the heart of many villages and towns throughout Ireland and how the same sense of community and engagement could be transferred to an industrial site.
Various opportunities for the distillery to engage with the surrounding town and community was explored. The creation of internal squares encourages spontaneous interactions between workers and locals. By embedding the distillery within the urban grain, this encourages the community to engage with the site. By retaining the natural features on the site, the locals can learn about the role of foraging in whiskey flavouring and continue to use the natural landscape in the greater town to contribute to a more authentic product. Using paving to outline the private and public areas furthermore allows visitors and workers to explore the distillery safely and within their means. Reintroducing dying skills such as coopering would promote local employment, revive craftsmanship and encourage the uptake in apprenticeships within the industry. The use of charred timber allows for both the distillery to be self-sufficient in repairing and advertising the craftsmanship of the coopers creating a greater sense of pride in place. Meitheal is not just a distillery but a regenerative model for industry that is porous, productive and proudly local.
Reinhabiting the Backlands
This thesis explored the adaptive reuse of derelict sites in town centres to create functional homes, aiming to revitalise urban cores and attract residents back into these areas. The project began with an in-depth analysis of Narrow West Street in Drogheda, examining the potential retrofit of buildings in varying states of dilapidation.
Oscar Newman’s ‘Defensible Space Theory’ was a key influence throughout the design process, shaping a concept that prioritised community, safety, and privacy. These ideas informed the integration of semi-public spaces and defined thresholds, guiding residents from public streets into private dwellings while fostering a sense of ownership and security.
The design development involved testing two primary concepts. The first proposed demolishing rear extensions to accommodate a modern version of mixed-use developments. The second approach embraced the strategic reuse of the existing built fabric. This scheme aimed to preserve the site’s character while introducing communal indoor and outdoor areas that encourage interaction and shared responsibility among residents. The final design presents a vision for sustainable urban regeneration, one that respects historical context while creating a liveable, defensible, and connected neighbourhood.
Laindéar Dhroichead Átha – Drogheda’s Lantern
Restoring Drogheda’s Urban Design – Reclaiming the Identity of the Mall. This thesis is set in the medieval town of Drogheda, a place rich in history and cultural significance. It investigates the town’s past and examines the urban characteristics it once possessed, with a particular focus on public spaces designed for community use. The research traces Drogheda’s development over time. It highlights how the urban fabric has evolved, looking at how communal spaces have been neglected or forgotten.
The study looks at the shift in urban priorities following the introduction of the car in Ireland. Like many towns and cities, Drogheda adapted its infrastructure to accommodate vehicles which is often at the expense of pedestrians and public life. This research argues for a reimagining of Drogheda’s urban design through the reclamation of these overlooked spaces. It emphasises that the town historically embraced public generosity through its spatial design and explores how these values can be revived. The medieval quarters of Drogheda are rich with significant landmarks, and this project seeks to integrate these urban features into the design proposal. In doing so, it aims to reinforce a sense of local identity and create a civic space that invites the public to engage with and appreciate the town’s unique historical and architectural character.
A Palimpsest of Renewal
This thesis addresses the longed-for revitalisation of neglected Georgian heritage buildings through a mode of material sorting and reuse. The site sits at the lower end of the Georgian Newtown Pery Grid, founded by a cluster of dereliction within the city. Jesuit Lane becomes an organised, brick-vaulted matrix in which workshops that contribute toward a self-repairing city can take place. It integrates existing institutions such as the Sacred Heart Church and the Limerick Tutorial College, embedding itself within an already active civic fabric.
The programme unfolds within a realm of brick vaults extracted from the very city in which it stands. It includes educative and reparative workshops, a large church assembly hall, and material storage facilities, all emphasising the reuse of salvaged and redundant materials sourced from surrounding areas. Redundant materials become the central subject of the project, shifting from waste to resource. The site operates as both a hub and a form of spolia — a place where fragments of the city are gathered, catalogued, and reintroduced — enticing the city to repair itself through incremental, smaller-scale acts of intervention.
This thesis explores architecture as a provocation, or re-provocation, of our inner visionary selves. It questions current approaches to renewal within the built environment and challenges the tendency toward replacement over repair. This response lies in the mode of sensitive material sorting, with particular attention given to materials already embedded within the existing fabric. By recognising the latent value in what is already present, the project seeks to step toward a more sustainable architectural output. Ultimately, it aims to portray a world in which one empathises with the material before them — where architecture begins not with extraction, but with recognition, care, and reuse. The city becomes self-repairing.
Functional Follies
“Functional Follies: The Liminal Utility Square” reimagines everyday public infrastructure – laundrettes, toilets, parcel lockers – not as background utilities but as active civic architecture. By investigating unintentional communal infrastructure, such as petrol stations, bus stops, laundrettes and shrines, we can begin to understand how ambiguous spaces can become places of meaningful social interaction and community.
Set on a disused backlands site in Wicklow Town, the project proposes a granite tower and public square that form a new route from sea to hill, transforming functional needs into shared social experiences. Drawing from Irish tower houses and local Wicklow granite stone construction, the project assembles a series of “functional follies” including laundry, café, bike repair, recycling, gym, and public toilets. A custodian’s dwelling supports long-term care, while dry, modular construction allows the building to adapt over time. Stainless steel mesh wraps the stone frame to create service cavities, enabling flexibility and housing passive drying cupboards. The ground-floor laundry acts as a thermal engine, transferring heat to communal spaces above. In a context where communal life is increasingly designed out or monetised, the project proposes a civic architecture rooted in use, care, and everyday ritual.
Testing to Failure ; A Trade School for Stonemasonry
Set within a rewilded limestone quarry on the edge of Drogheda, ‘Testing to Failure’ proposes a trade school for stonemasonry rooted in gravity, craft, and structural honesty. The project asks a simple but urgent question: what can architecture learn by returning to physical experimentation?
Historically, Gothic master builders and later figures such as Frei Otto used physical models to discover structure through force rather than drawing alone. This thesis revives that tradition. Hanging chain models, clay maquettes, and compression vault prototypes were built and intentionally pushed to collapse. Failure became a design tool. Each break revealed how form, force, and material negotiate equilibrium.
The quarry site is both origin and teacher. It is where stone was once extracted to build the town; now it becomes a place to rebuild knowledge. Rather than imposing geometry onto the terrain, the architecture follows the slope, embedding itself lightly within the landscape. Early water-flow experiments over a site model allowed gravity to guide orientation and circulation, reinforcing the thesis ambition to work with, not against, natural forces.
The school is constructed in local limestone using compression-only arches and vaults derived from inverted chain geometries. Spans were refined through iterative testing to ensure structural feasibility without hidden steel reinforcement. Even the foundations evolved: concrete retaining walls were replaced with dry stone construction and recycled quarry infill, strengthening the project’s commitment to material integrity and circular logic.
Programme is layered along the slope: public exhibition and café spaces at entry level, workshops and stone yards embedded below, and classrooms positioned to overlook active construction. Students learn by building the very architecture they inhabit. The building becomes a didactic instrument. Its structure visible, legible, and expressive.
Testing to Failure proposes a future where low-tech craft and digital validation coexist, where compression is rediscovered as a sustainable structural language, and where Stone is the driver of cultural regeneration. In the collapse of a model, new architecture begins