The Gardens Trust presents a series of 4 online talks on some of the well- and lesser known historic gardens of Ireland Wednesdays from 1 Feb £5 each or £16 for all. Register through Eventbrite HERE., or visit https://thegardenstrust.org for more details. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us). A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards. This third of the series is on Phoenix Park, on February 15.
Phoenix Park is one of the world’s great urban parks and has been managed by the Office of Public Works almost continuously from 1860 to the present day and for periods of its history before that. Its significance lies in its antiquity, from human habitation to 5,500 years ago, through the reign of Charles II in the 1660s, when it was Ireland’s only royal deer park at the time, until the present day, where it makes a major contribution to the recreational, cultural, social and economic needs of the City of Dublin.
The lecture will endeavor to cover the main landscape and historical developments during its 360 year existence as a recreational facility as well as focusing on some of the major landscape professionals such as Decimus Burton who made a major contribution to its landscape layout. Some aspects of the Park’s management as the herd of fallow deer and grassland management will also be discussed and the contributions made by a number of Park bailiffs in the late 19th and early decades of the 20th centuries.
Dr John A. McCullen graduated from University College Dublin with a first class hons. degree in horticulture in 1970 followed by an MSc. in Landscape Ecology, Design and Maintenance from Wye College, London University. In 2007 he was awarded a PhD by the University of Dublin for his thesis on the Landscape History and Management of the Phoenix Park from 1800-1880. He is retired chief park superintendent with the Office of Public Works and has been responsible for the management and conservation of Phoenix Park for almost 25 years. John has also been involved in the conservation and restoration of numerous other OPW historic properties during this period. He is the author of An illustrated history of the Phoenix Park: landscape and management to 1880 (OPW, 2009). He is currently working on vol. 2 of the Park’s history from 1880 to 1980 which is due to be published in 2023.
