Judith A. Hill

Hill was born in London and educated at North London Collegiate School. She graduated from Girton College, Cambridge in 1982 with a BA in the History of Art and from Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brooks University) in 1989 with a diploma in architecture. She was awarded a PhD in Architectural History by Trinity College Dublin with a thesis on the Gothic revival in post-Union Ireland.{{cite thesis|degree=PhD|url=http://stella.catalogue.tcd.ie|title=Perceptions and uses of Gothic in Irish domestic and ecclesiastical architecture, 1800–1815|first= Judith Alison|last=Hill|year=2016|publisher=Trinity College Dublin|oclc=}}

Hill moved to Ireland in 1989. After completing The Building of Limerick (1991), Hill

developed a business as a built heritage consultant. She published Irish Public Sculpture in

1998. This was followed by two biographies, Lady Gregory: An Irish Life (2005) on the

Anglo-Irish dramatist, folklorist, theatre manager and leader of the Irish Literary Revival, and

In Search of Islands: A Life of Conor O’Brien (2009), on the Anglo-Irish architect, author,

mountaineer and pioneering sailor.

Hill has published widely on art and architectural history, and appeared on Irish TV and

radio, most recently in the two-part RTÉ documentary on Lady Gregory starring Miriam Margolyes and Lynn Ruane. She is currently visiting research fellow, Trinity College Dublin. She is a contributor on art and architecture to the Irish Arts Review{{cite news |last=Hill |first=Judith |title=The conservation of Irish houses |newspaper=Irish Arts Review |url=https://www.irishartsreview.com/articles/the-conservation-of-irish-houses-1984-2004/ |date=1 September 2004 |access-date=1 September 2004 |issn=0791-3540 |language=en-GB}} and Country Life (magazine).{{cite news |last=Hill |first=Judith |title=Pot-walloping Palladianism |newspaper=Country Life |url=https://www.countrylife.co.uk/publication/country-life/country-life-june-15-2016 |date=15 June 2004 |access-date=15 June 2016 |issn=0045-8856 |language=en-GB}}

In The Times Literary Supplement, Declan Kiberd wrote: "Judith Hill, a noted architectural historian with a deep feeling for the houses in which this story is enacted, does very well in raising Gregory's profile as a cultural revivalist, but she also makes a spirited case for her as a folk artist. Her book, at once judicious and warm, is a nuanced portrait of her subject's role in the invention of modern Ireland, a role which Gregory herself discharged with a similar blend of discretion and feeling. [Augusta Gregory's] time has come – and in this impressive and affecting study Judith Hill does Lady Gregory justice."{{cite news |last=Kiberd |first=Declan |title=Judith Hill on Lady Gregory |newspaper=The Times Literary Supplement |url=https://www.the-tls.co.uk/authors/declan-kiberd |date=3 March 2006 |access-date=3 March 2006 |language=en-GB}}

In Books Ireland, Robert Greacen wrote: "Judith Hill, in this well-researched and lucidly written biography ... reveals the passionate woman behind the cold, sombre mask. In short it brings to vivid life the story of a remarkable Irishwoman who, in a farewell note to Yeats, could truly say, “I have had a full life.”{{cite news |last=Greacen |first=Robert |title=Coole Lady |newspaper=Books Ireland |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20624165 |date=1 December 2005 |jstor=20624165 |access-date=1 December 2005 |issn=0376-6039 |language=en-GB}}

Books:

• The Building of Limerick, 1991, Mercier Press, Cork and Dublin.
• Irish Public Sculpture: A History, 1998, Four Courts Press, Dublin.
• Lady Gregory: An Irish Life, 2005, recent reprint 2023, Sutton Publishing, Stroud.
• In Search Of Islands: A Life Of Conor O'Brien, 2009, The Collins Press, Cork.
• An Introduction to the Architectural Heritage of Limerick City (Environment, Heritage and

Local Government, Dublin, 2008).

• An Introduction to the Architectural Heritage of County Limerick (Environment, Heritage and

Local Government, Dublin, 2011)

Selected articles and chapters in books:

• "Finding a voice: Augusta Gregory, Raftery, and Cultural Nationalism, 1899–1900", Irish University Review, 34:1 (2004), 21–36.
• "Lady Gregory’" in David Holdeman and Ben Levitas (eds), W.B. Yeats in context (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010), pp 129–138
• "Gothic in Post-Union Ireland: the uses of the past in Adare, Co. Limerick", in Terence

Dooley and Christopher Ridgeway (eds), Irish Country Houses, Past, Present and Future,

(Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2011), pp 58–89

• "Architecture in the aftermath of Union: building the Viceregal Chapel in Dublin Castle,

1801–1815", Architectural History (journal), Vol. 60 (2017), 183–217

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, Judith A.}}

Category:Living people

Category:1959 births

Category:Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge

Category:Alumni of Oxford Brookes University

Category:Alumni of Trinity College Dublin

Category:Irish architectural historians

Category:People educated at North London Collegiate School