Introduction: Irish housing design at the crossroads

The United Nations report captures Ireland’s housing policy during the opening years of the present survey of Irish housing design. Privately built for private ownership, a large proportion of the residential architecture being funded by the Irish State was not – unlike the social housing schemes constructed in Britain and elsewhere – immediately and visibly identified with the State. The United Nations report offers a snapshot of housing at a hinge point in Irish modernity. Meanwhile the ‘near total consensus’ on the need for State-supported homeownership which had spread across almost all Irish institutions proved difficult to pick apart. Given the expenditure involved and the importance attached philosophically to the home in modern Ireland, a representation of the Irish welfare state might legitimately be sought in the housing estates and bungalows becoming ubiquitous across the landscape. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.