During the 1960s, the physical landscape of Dublin changed more than at any time since the eighteenth century. In this period, the government began to invest in town planning, new opportunities arose for the country's architects, and the old buildings of the core began to be replaced by modern structures. The early manifestations of this process were well received, understood as the first visible signs of prosperity and broader social and economic modernization. However, this attitude was short lived. By the end of the 1960s, popular support for urban change had evaporated; a disparate movement of preservationists, housing activists, students, and architects emerged to oppose urban change and campaign for the retention of the city's heritage. The new buildings and urban forms had not brought the promised national rejuvenation. Instead, the rapid destruction of the extant city had come to be seen as symbolic of the corruption and failed promise of modernization. Modern Dublin examines this story. Using approaches from urban studies and cultural geography, the author reveals Dublin as a place of complex exchange between a variety of interest groups with different visions for the built environment, and thus for society and the independent nation. In so doing, Erika Hanna adds to growing literatures on civil society, heritage, and cultural politics since independence, and provides a fresh approach to social and cultural change in 1960s Ireland.
During the 1960s, the physical landscape of Dublin changed more than at any time since the eighteenth century. In this period, the government began to invest in town planning, new opportunities arose for the country's architects, and the old buildings of the core began to be replaced by modern structures. The early manifestations of this process were well received, understood as the first visible signs of prosperity and broader social and economic modernization. However, this attitude was short lived. By the end of the 1960s, popular support for urban change had evaporated; a disparate movement of preservationists, housing activists, students, and architects emerged to oppose urban change and campaign for the retention of the city's heritage. The new buildings and urban forms had not brought the promised national rejuvenation. Instead, the rapid destruction of the extant city had come to be seen as symbolic of the corruption and failed promise of modernization. Modern Dublin examines this story. Using approaches from urban studies and cultural geography, the author reveals Dublin as a place of complex exchange between a variety of interest groups with different visions for the built environment, and thus for society and the independent nation. In so doing, Erika Hanna adds to growing literatures on civil society, heritage, and cultural politics since independence, and provides a fresh approach to social and cultural change in 1960s Ireland.
Introduction: Modern Dublin and the Irish Past
1: Chapter One: Planning and the Eighteenth-Century City,
1955-75
2: Georgian Dublin and Modern Architecture, 1950-65
3: Kildare Place and the Irish Georgian Society, 1957-58
4: Modernization and Preservation, 1958-65
5: Housing, Community, and Preservation, 1963-70
6: Material Culture and Social Politics, 1964-73
7: Office Politics, 1965-70
Conclusion: The Invention of Georgian Dublin
Bibliography
Erika Hanna was born in Dublin and grew up in Ireland, Britain, and America. She studied for her BA at the University of Bristol and completed her doctorate on 1960s Dublin at Hertford College, Oxford. She has been appointed Chancellor's Fellow in History at the University of Edinburgh.
a scholarly and serious contribution ... [it] will become a staple
for contemporary Irish history studies.
*Ellen Rowley, Irish Arts*
Modern Dublin makes a significant contribution to scholarship on
urban modernization in this period and it deepens our understanding
of social, political and cultural change in the twentieth-century
city.
*David Ellis, The Journal of Urban History*
traces the sociopolitical labyrinths of destruction and
conservation
*Roy Foster, Books of the year 2014, The Irish Times*
Modern Dublin is an interesting and timely addition to the
historical literature on Ireland during the 1960s and 1970s. By
highlighting the emergence of the nexus between politicians,
property developers and protesters during this period, it will
doubtless be widely read by those seeking to understand Ireland's
economic and urban development in historical perspective.
*Shaun Mcdaid, History*
Hanna's ability to construct a series of nuanced arguments and
sophisticated readings while making sense of what is a complicated
and evolving narrative is one of the many strengths of this
important book.
*Gary A. Boyd, American Historical Review*
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