Bantry Library, Co. Cork

Set in the small market town of Bantry, surrounded by one of the spate rivers that drain from the Knocknaveagh range to the south, is one of Ireland’s most unusual examples of Modernist architecture. Bantry Library was designed in 1962 by the Cork County Council architect Patrick McSweeney, and the project was developed and overseen by his assistant, Harry Wallace. The design is said to have been conceived when McSweeney and his daughter were recovering from the ’flu; to pass the time he made a model of a library building. His excitement with this design led him to present the model to a Convention of Librarians in Dublin, where it was enthusiastically received. [Opening paragraph]