| Judith Hill | |
| Birth Name: | Judith Alison Hill |
| Birth Date: | October df=y, 1959 |
| Nationality: | British/Irish |
| Education: | North London Collegiate School |
| Alma Mater: | University of Cambridge (MA), Trinity College Dublin (PhD) |
Judith Alison Hill (born 30 October 1959) is an Irish architectural historian, built heritage consultant and author, best known for her biography of Anglo-Irish dramatist and folklorist Lady Gregory.[1]
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 (now Oxford Brooks University) 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.[2]
Hill moved to Ireland in 1989. After completing The Building of Limerick (1991), Hilldeveloped a business as a built heritage consultant. She published Irish Public Sculpture in1998. This was followed by two biographies, Lady Gregory: An Irish Life (2005) on theAnglo-Irish dramatist, folklorist, theatre manager and leader of the Irish Literary Revival, andIn Search of Islands: A Life of Conor O’Brien (2009), on the Anglo-Irish architect, author,mountaineer and pioneering sailor.
Hill has published widely on art and architectural history, and appeared on Irish TV andradio, 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[3] and Country Life (magazine).[4]
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. [Augusta Gregory's] time has come – and in this impressive and affecting study Judith Hill does Lady Gregory justice."[5]
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.”[6]
Books:
Local Government, Dublin, 2008).
Local Government, Dublin, 2011)
Selected articles and chapters in books:
Dooley and Christopher Ridgeway (eds), Irish Country Houses, Past, Present and Future,(Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2011), pp 58–89
1801–1815", Architectural History (journal), Vol. 60 (2017), 183–217