08/03/2026
A STORY - for International Women’s Day
In 2020, I (Aisling) was asked to write a chapter on women in architecture in Northern Ireland between 1965-2015. I politely declined, explaining that this wasn’t my area. A researcher, yes, but an architectural historian I am not!
A while later. I was approached again through someone else - they were still looking, and that’s when I realised…
Women in architecture in Northern Ireland was noone’s area of expertise! It’s not a topic anyone had made a particular point of researching. So I agreed to do it.
What followed were some fascinating conversations with people I knew and others I didn’t, reminiscing and sharing their stories. Turns out there have been many pioneering women in architecture from this wee place!*
*Including Florence Fulton Hobson (1881-1978), Ireland’s first woman architect.
Some were friends and colleagues I’d known or worked with over the years, who only when asked, quietly admitted the remarkable things they’d achieved…
Take, for example, Ruth Morrow , who became the first female professor of architecture on the island of Ireland (in 2003).
Or the first architect in Northern Ireland to be accredited by the RIBA as a Specialist Conservation Architect, in 2011 - namely Consarc’s brilliant Bronagh Lynch .
Then there’s Siobhan Brown, perhaps better known as a radio presenter and soul singer, Manukahunney, but who also developed NI’s first low-energy social housing in historic buildings, while working at Hearth, in 2007. .siobhan
These, and many others, weren’t just pioneering women architects, but pioneering architects, full stop, busy getting on with their trail-blazing careers. Not surprising, really - it took serious chutzpah for women architects to practice in what was at the time even more of a male-dominated industry.
(Continued in comments…)
