28.10.2025, 18:00 P.M.
Interpreting Transformative Periods in Maritime Engineering by Professor Elizabeth Shotton, UCD School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, and co-editor of Documenting Maritime Heritage at Risk (Routledge, 2024)
This is the fourth talk in the Water & Ireland's Architectural Heritage autumn Conservation Education talk series.
Abstract: Technology evolves over time principally in response to the materials available. Early Irish piers were timber frameworks infilled with stone, such as Dublin’s original South wall, at Carrickfergus, or as is still done in timber-rich countries like Canada. As timber became scare stone began to dominate, its features varying by stone type and local building traditions. Concrete piers and quays of the late 19th century were part of this evolution, offering a cheaper alternative to dressed stone. The introduction of concrete drove considerable experimentation due to the relative novelty of the material and uncertainty as to its properties, similar to what occurred during the transition from wood to iron in bridges and trusses in the late 18th century. More than one hundred of these structures were built between 1866 and 1894, largely by the Office of Public Works, which, when taken as a whole, illustrate this evolution as well as innovative forms peculiar to the Irish context.
Elizabeth Shotton is an registered architect who has been teaching technology and design in the UCD School of Architecture, Planning & Environmental Policy since 2004. Her PhD, Building on the River Liffey (2013), sponsored her current interest in the evolution of maritime engineering in Ireland 1700-1900. Recent work on Ireland’s earliest concrete piers and quays has involved onsite surveys and archival research to underpin a comparative analysis of the transition from stone to concrete harbours in the late nineteenth century.
Image: Coliemore Harbour, Dalkey, County Dublin (image courtesy of Elizabeth Shotton)