Judith A. Hill


Judith Alison Hill 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 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, 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 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, 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. 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:
Selected articles and chapters in books:
  • "Finding a voice: Augusta Gregory, Raftery, and Cultural Nationalism, 1899–1900", Irish University Review, 34:1, 21–36.
  • "Lady Gregory’" in David Holdeman and Ben Levitas, W.B. Yeats in context, pp 129–138
  • "Gothic in Post-Union Ireland: the uses of the past in Adare, Co. Limerick", in Terence
Dooley and Christopher Ridgeway, Irish Country Houses, Past, Present and Future,
, pp 58–89
  • "Architecture in the aftermath of Union: building the Viceregal Chapel in Dublin Castle,
1801–1815", Architectural History (journal), Vol. 60, 183–217