The Irish Interior Designers Behind Rooms You Have Already Been In

A hotel interior. Photo: Timofey Radkevich / Unsplash.

If you have had a drink in the Vintage Cocktail Club, stayed at The Dean, eaten in Sophie’s or stood in the Gravity Bar at the Guinness Storehouse, you have been in a room designed by the same Irish practice.

Irish interior design has a public profile roughly a tenth the size of Irish architecture’s, and a client list considerably more glamorous. Here is who is actually doing the work.

The practice behind the rooms you already know

O’Donnell O’Neill Design was founded in 2001 by Graham O’Donnell and Ann-Marie O’Neill, with studios in Blackrock, Co. Dublin and Donegall Street, Belfast. It is the clearest answer to the question of who designs Ireland’s hotels and bars.

The names working abroad

Bryan O’Sullivan is from Kenmare, Co. Kerry. He trained in the studios of David Collins, Luis Laplace and Martin Brudnizki before founding his own practice, now based in central London and New York. His work includes the Berkeley Bar; suites, the penthouse and a restaurant at Claridge’s; the Red Room at the Connaught; the Maybourne Riviera in Monte Carlo; and the restaurant at the Frick Collection in New York.

Sara Cosgrove read at Trinity, then trained at the KLC School of Design in London. She worked at Allegra Hicks, Helen Green Design and Candy & Candy, became Head of Interior Design at Harrods, and then Design Director at The Principal Hotel Company, leading the redesigns of the Kimpton Fitzroy London, the InterContinental Edinburgh George Street, The Milner York and the Kimpton Clocktower Manchester. She founded Sara Cosgrove Studio in 2017 and Grove & Co in 2021.

Róisín Lafferty founded her studio in 2010; it traded as Kingston Lafferty Design before rebranding under her own name, and now works across the US, Europe and Asia.

Brian Woulfe is Irish-born and London-based, trading as Designed by Woulfe.

And at home

Suzie McAdam took an honours degree in interior design at DIT in 2010, worked for a Palo Alto studio on Californian residential projects, and founded her Monkstown studio on her return. She was named IMAGE Magazine Interior Designer of the Year in 2019. Her work is predominantly residential.

Two more names arrived this summer from the architecture side, and the home desk should be watching both. Rachel Carmody Design won an RIAI award in June for Greenville Terrace, and REIR Studio won for Pembroke Cottages — both in the Living: House – Adaptation category, which is to say both for doing something clever with a small existing Irish house.

Where to see them in September

Design Week Dublin runs from 16 to 20 September at Anantara The Marker and the Malt House on Grand Canal Quay — around 25 events and 35 speakers, founded by Jane and Sarah McDonnell of THE GLOSS.

Named participants include Róisín Lafferty, Sara Cosgrove, Suzie McAdam, Brian Woulfe, Emma O’Neill of Sofield Studio in New York, Maria Fenlon, Susan McGowan of Ashen & Cloud, Geri O’Toole, Killian McNulty, Jasper Conran, Maria Grachvogel, Diarmuid Gavin, Níall McLaughlin and O’Donnell + Tuomey. Check individual session times with the organisers before travelling for one — the published programme has some evident errors in its speaker pairings.

One to watch in October

DÍON, the rooftop venue on top of the former Central Bank on Dame Street, is shortlisted in the Global Rooftop category of the Restaurant & Bar Design Awards 2026. Interiors are by ICRAVE of New York with Henry J Lyons of Dublin. Winners are announced in the week of 5 October.

A note on awards

We have been careful here, and it is worth explaining why. Several Irish designers’ own sites carry long “press and awards” pages listing programmes and publications — Dezeen Awards, SBID, Fit Out, Architectural MasterPrize — without stating which were won, for what, or when.

So we have named only awards we could tie to a year and a project. If a designer has won something we have not listed, we would be glad to correct the record with a source.