The Irish Times

Visiting the Irish Architectural Archive used to be like being admitted into a fraternity. Around the polished mahogany table at No 63 Merrion Square in Dublin, a handful of people would pursue their scholarly interest in Irish architecture, darting an occasional curious glance toward anyone who wasn't a regular researcher. A move to No 73 gave the Archive a little more scope, but its new home on the east side of Merrion Square finally does justice to its role as a major cultural institution: Ireland's national buildings record. The doors opened yesterday on the imposing double-fronted 18th-century townhouse, the largest on the square, which has been expertly restored and refurbished over the past year by a team of architects and conservationists from the Office of Public Works (OPW), led by Niall Parsons. The building was made available to the Archive by the State in 1996, when it was vacated by the Irish Patent Office.