The Irish Architects Winning Everything, and the School Ireland Voted For

Contemporary concrete architecture. Photo: Mattia Revelant / Unsplash.

In January, an Irish-educated architect was given the highest honour in British architecture. In June, twenty-four Irish buildings were recognised at home, and the one the public voted for was a special school in Letterkenny. In April, a Dublin practice opened a museum in east London.

Ireland is having a decade in architecture that it has not entirely noticed. Here is who is actually winning, and for what.

The 2026 awards, and what they were about

The RIAI Irish Architecture Awards announced on 18 June 2026 recognised twenty-four projects. Read the list and a theme is unmissable: this was a year about doing something with what already exists.

Three of the categories — Adaptation & Re-Use, Conservation, and Living: House – Adaptation — are explicitly about existing buildings. ABK Architects won for Kilsaran Headquarters, Lawrence and Long for a student residence on Fenian Street, McCullough Mulvin for Squaring the Circle. The Office of Public Works took a conservation award for the Magazine Fort in the Phoenix Park, and 7L Architects for the Blackrock Park Teahouse.

Henry J Lyons took five awards, including one for Ireland House Tokyo in the International category and one, with Gustafson Porter + Bowman, for the Google Bolands Mills public realm.

But the award that says most about the year is the one the public chose.

The building Ireland voted for

The RIAI Public Choice Award — Ireland’s Favourite Building — went to a new special education needs school in Letterkenny, known locally as Little Angels School, by McGarry Ní Éanaigh Architects. It also took the Universal Design award from the judges.

It has kept going. As of 24 August it is shortlisted for Education Project of the Year at the ICI Awards 2026. A public vote for a special school, over every office, gallery and apartment block in the country, is a data point about what people actually want architecture to be for.

The Gold Medal, and what it actually is

The RIAI Gold Medal is Ireland’s highest architectural honour, awarded since 1934. It is routinely misdescribed, so it is worth being precise: it is triennial, it is given for a building rather than a career, and it is deliberately awarded several years after completion so that, in the RIAI’s words, the success of the building can be confirmed by the passage of time.

The current holder is Donaghy + Dimond Architects, for The Model School, Inchicore, covering the 2013–2015 period, announced in December 2024. Previous recipients include Michael Scott for Busáras, O’Donnell + Tuomey, and Grafton Architects for Bocconi in Milan.

The international tier

Four Irish practices are operating at a level where the awards are not Irish ones.

The generation underneath

Below the internationally famous practices is a cohort that has been quietly collecting awards for fifteen years.

TAKA — Alice Casey and Cian Deegan, founded in Dublin in 2007, both TU Dublin graduates — won the AR Peter Davey Prize for Emerging Architecture in 2019, were finalists for the Royal Academy Dorfman Award the same year, and showed in the central pavilion at Venice in 2018.

Ryan W. Kennihan Architects, Cornell-trained, in Dublin since 2002: RIAI Best House in 2021 for Baltrasna House, an AAI Award in 2021 for Beach Road House, RIAI Best Emerging Practice in 2011, and a place in the main exhibition at Venice in 2018.

Clancy Moore — Andrew Clancy and Colm Moore, both UCD, now senior lecturers at Queen’s — hold the Wood Award 2014, the AAI Downes Medal 2013 and RIAI House of the Year 2013. Their best-known work is Slievebawnogue, two houses built into a disused quarry in the Dublin Mountains.

Steve Larkin Architects: RIAI Best Emerging Practice and RIAI Best House, both 2012, and Ireland’s nominee for the EU Mies van der Rohe Prize in 2013.

What happens next

On 27 July the curators for Ireland’s pavilion at the 2027 Venice Architecture Biennale were named: Emmet Humphreys and Nathalie Weadick, on behalf of Galway City Council, with a project called RESIDUUM.

The RIAI itself has a new president. Fionnuala May, County Architect at Fingal County Council since 2011, took office for the 2026–27 term — the 66th president since 1839, and the fifth woman.

And there is a conference. Architecture for the Common Good runs at the RDS on 7 and 8 October, with more than thirty speakers and a Rising Stars session for the RIAI Emerging and Student Award winners. It has been designated an Associated Event of Ireland’s EU Presidency.