Judith Alison Hill (born 30 October 1959) is an Irish architectural historian, built heritage consultant and author, best known for her biography of Anglo-Irish dramatist and folklorist Lady Gregory.
Education
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.
Career
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 and Country Life (magazine).
Critical reception of Lady Gregory: An Irish Life
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."
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.”
Publications
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
References
