I graduated from Dublin Institute of Technology in 1967, one of the first batch of Architectural Technicians to complete the inaugural Architectural Technology course. Since then I have been employed by the Office of Public Works, the government department charged with the provision and maintenance of state buildings. Over this period I have worked on a wide range of building types including primary schools, government offices, police stations, and high security prisons.

About ten years ago, I moved to the National Monuments Division of  OPW to work on the survey and recording and conservation of historic monuments in state care. Architectural conservation is a quite different discipline and the learning process brought me into contact with a new range of professionals and craftsmen including architectural historians, archaeologists, oak timber specialists, lime mortar experts, stone cutters and repairers, craft metal workers and thatchers. Projects I have worked on have varied from Iron Age forts to early Christian churches and monastic settlements (including a world heritage site on Skellig Michael, off the SW coast of Ireland),  and medieval castles and tower houses.