North by Northwest Introduction

The architectural works of Liam McCormick are some of the most important and memorable of the modern period in Ireland. During a long and fertile career his architecture embraced a wide variety of building types, from churches and schools to social house and private dwellings. In particular, an impressive series of outstanding churches is testimony to his position as the most accomplished Irish Church architect of his generation as well as the leading patron of modern Irish church art.

He did not choose his time and place, but neither could have been planned. Born and brought up in the northwest of Ireland, he developed an enduring attachment to that place, forever enthralled by its landscape of mountains and sea and, most of all, its people. His intuitive respond to its particular landscape attributes brought a lyricism and beauty to much of his work.

His time was fortuitous, too, being born just late enough to avoid being pulled into the world of attachment to historical styles. He underwent an architectural education abroad which proved of inestimable value in opening up his horizons; a visit to Paris in 1937 at the most formative stage of his training swept him into the mainstream of advanced European architectural thought. It helped him develop a philosophy of architecture that would influence his work throughout his career and allow him to take on that last bastion of entrenchedly conservative opinion and practice in Ireland - the Catholic Church - offering a way out of its backward building work and a push through to its conversion to architectural modernism.

Entirely modernist throughout his career, and one of the earliest of Irish architects to be so committed, he was also one of the most romantic, with an obvious belief in architecture as an emotional art. Place and time also shaped his other interests. Growing up by the sea he developed a love for sailing, where he relished man's battle with the elements. Growing up in a politically troubled island, too, compelled him to become involved in politics, briefly but to notable effects.

This monograph follows the course of his life and his career through various partnerships, recording all of the most important buildings and a number of his minor works as well. The complete range of his mature architectural work is also revealed by a series of photographic essays, drawing particularly on specially commissioned views by that great architectural photographer, the late Henk Snoek. We are grateful to the RIBA British Architectural Library Photographs Collection for providing fresh digital scans of these images.

McCormick's own collection of photographs of his buildings, along with other personal memorabilia such as private papers, correspondence and an album of newspaper clippings, served as one of the key sources of information on the architect. We are grateful to his widow Joy and her children for making such valuable resource material, which was further collated by Maeve O'Neill.

Archival materials have otherwise been less plentiful than one might have hoped. Almost no original drawings and no office ledgers have survived the various changing partnerships and premises. An office fire in 1972 destroyed much that had been preserved by that time. Thus what could have been an easy task of logging all commissions and buildings in chronological sequence to provide an authoritative record was made somewhat harder to accomplish. However, various trawls through both the public and the architectural press (principally the Irish Builder and Engineer, the leading architectural journal in Ireland during all of McCormick's career) enabled an impressively long if not comprehensive list of works to be, compiled. The authors were joined in this by Eve McAulay of the Irish Architectural Archive, whose diligent efforts in this regard are very much appreciated, as is the expert and friendly support we received from all of the Archive's staff.

Not all building works were mentioned in the press, however, and the recollections of a long-time associate and friend of McCormick, Joe Tracey, have been invaluable for filling in some gaps. We are also indebted to Joe for his insights into office life from the early days of Corr & McCormick, through Liam McCormick & Partners, to McCormick Tracey Mullarkey.

We are also indebted to Carole Pollard for gathering together the anecdotal memories of many who knew McCormick, and helping to paint a fuller picture of the man and his manner.

Our thanks are also due to our other contributors: John Hume for a statement on McCormick's public and political life, Wallace Clark for a tribute to McCormick's sailing prowess, Tarla MacGanhann for confirmation that McCormick's example continues to inspire, and last but not least, to Seamus Heaney, who has elegantly summed up McCormicks achievement for us in words of neat economy.

We are grateful to our sponsors, in particular the unwavering support of Mike Murphy and at Doherty of Harcourt development, and to the many other people listed elsewhere who have either helped in gathering materials or offered rare insight into the life of one of the greatest of Irish architects of the twentieth century.