The Irish Aesthete: Buildings of Ireland, Lost and Found

Go on a journey with Robert O’Byrne as he brings fascinating Irish ruins to life.

Inspired by his passionate interest in Ireland’s architectural heritage and concern for its preservation, in 2012 writer Robert O’Byrne created a blog called The Irish Aesthete. He subsequently moved onto other social media and now The Irish Aesthete is an established presence on Facebook, Twitter, and on YouTube where Robert started his own channel in 2020. The Irish Aesthete has also established a strong and ever-growing presence on Instagram where he has over 37,000 followers. Architects, designers, decorators and historians from around the world now come to The Irish Aesthete for information on Ireland’s historic architecture.

Having never owned a camera, from the beginning Robert O’Byrne used his mobile phone, teaching himself how to make good pictures that would hold the attention of viewers. Since then, his photographs have received widespread acclaim and appeared on book covers, in magazine and newspaper articles and on many other sites.

To mark The Irish Aesthete’s tenth anniversary in 2022, he presented a complete set of these images to the Irish Architectural Archive. Robert’s collection of photographs, covering everything from grand country houses to ancient monasteries, now runs to over 100,000 images and covers all 32 counties in Ireland.

This new volume will contain over 160 of O’Byrne’s own selection of his best work with photographs accompanied by descriptions and anecdotes.

A former Vice-President of the Irish Georgian Society, Robert O’Byrne is today one of Ireland’s best-known writers and lecturers specializing in the country’s historic houses and gardens. He is the author of more than a dozen books, among them Hugh Lane: A Biography (Lilliput, 2000, 2018), Luggala: The Story of a Guinness House (CICO Books, 2018), Digging New Ground: The Irish Country House Garden 1650-1900 (Irish Georgian Society, 2022), Left without a Handkerchief (Lilliput, 2022) and Romantic Irish Homes (CICO Books, 2023). For many years a contributor to Apollo Magazine, The Burlington Magazine and the Irish Arts Review. During 2021/22 Robert curated a number of events, including exhibitions, lectures and a conference, all on the theme of Ireland’s country house gardens for the Irish Georgian Society.