Landscape architecture in Ireland
The Irish Free State came into being in 1922, follow-
ing a civil war, when 26 Irish counties seceded from
the United Kingdom as the ‘Irish Free State’. The
conditions for this split developed during the previ-
ous century as a result of social, political, economic
factors, cultural imperatives and the severe effects
of the potato famine of the 1840s. Six counties
remained within the UK as Northern Ireland. With
the creation of a republic in 1949, the Republic of
Ireland was born.
The Republic of Ireland was traditionally a rural econ-
omy and its economic development was hindered by
poverty and emigration until the 1990s. That decade
saw the beginnings of remarkable economic success
and the country became known as the ‘Celtic Tiger’.
During that time, with support from the European
Union, the Irish government implemented a series
of national economic programmes including urban
regeneration and development. These policies had
a very positive effect and Ireland now has a thriving
economy and a rising population which is young and
well educated, with good employment prospects.
Landscape architecture is a developing profession
within the Republic of Ireland, having its independ-
ent origins in the 1970s. In 1966, when the United
Nations considered the country undeveloped, there
was only one landscape architect in private practice
and the profession was a chapter of the (British)
Landscape Institute. The profession began to devel-
op when seven landscape architects who trained
in America, with Ian McHarg among their tutors,
returned in the 1970s to the Republic of Ireland to
work. In the early days the planning and environ-
ment section of the Tourist Board and the Office of
Public Works provided important opportunities for
landscape architectural input into prime projects, for
example, the site planning of Glenveagh National
Park, the historic Glendalough site in the Wicklow
mountains and the Canal Studies Strategy.The advent of the European Union, which brought
the predicted opportunities for development and
consultation arising from legislation, led to the pro-
fession’s separation from the Landscape Institute
in the UK. An initiative in 1993 brought togeth-
er the Institute of Landscape Architects and the
Horticultural Association to form the Irish Landscape
Institute (ILI), which has members working in pri-
vate practices and local authorities throughout the
Republic of Ireland. In 2004, an undergraduate
landscape architecture course was instigated at
University College, Dublin, in addition to landscape
horticulture, which has been the traditional route for
those training for the profession.Local authorities employ architects, urban design-
ers and landscape architects. They have recentlyIreland
Sue Jackson