An Leabharlann (The Library)
Client: Private
Type: Renovation and Addition
Gross Internal Area: 28 sqm / 301 sqft
Status: in Construction
Location: Co. Kerry
Date: 2024-
A library and writing retreat is sensitively embedded into the hillside, carefully grafted onto the side of a traditional two-storey stone farmhouse.
The new addition draws formal and material inspiration from the single-barrel-vaulted hay barns once typical of Kerry’s rural landscape. These modest agricultural structures—roofed in corrugated steel and often located adjacent to farmhouses—played an essential role in daily life. Though increasingly rare, their typology remains deeply embedded in the collective rural memory. This project reinterprets that elemental form, reasserting it within a contemporary architectural language and on a site where hay was once traditionally piled into a coca féir.
The library will be clad in stone salvaged from the client’s grandmother’s birthplace, now a ruin, in nearby Doonshean. These weathered stones, rich with personal and cultural resonance, will anchor the new structure in both memory and place.
A transparent threshold, illuminated from above by a circular rooflight, links past and present. Inside, a sequence of naturally lit enfilade spaces provides layered sightlines through the house and library, extending outward to the surrounding fields and the distant Atlantic horizon. The vaulted ceiling enhances the sense of verticality and creates a contemplative atmosphere.
The material palette is intentionally restrained and tactile. Handmade oak shelving and plan chests line the interior, housing the client’s extensive book collection while serving as both functional storage and integrated seating.
A deep window seat, oriented toward sun, field and sea, offers a place of introspection—a quiet observatory for the shifting rhythms of light and landscape.
Project Collaborations:
Main Contractor: Gearóid Misteal + Team
Stone Mason: Aidan McKenna + Team
Client: Private
Type: Renovation and Addition
Gross Internal Area: 28 sqm / 301 sqft
Status: in Construction
Location: Co. Kerry
Date: 2024-
A library and writing retreat is sensitively embedded into the hillside, carefully grafted onto the side of a traditional two-storey stone farmhouse.
The new addition draws formal and material inspiration from the single-barrel-vaulted hay barns once typical of Kerry’s rural landscape. These modest agricultural structures—roofed in corrugated steel and often located adjacent to farmhouses—played an essential role in daily life. Though increasingly rare, their typology remains deeply embedded in the collective rural memory. This project reinterprets that elemental form, reasserting it within a contemporary architectural language and on a site where hay was once traditionally piled into a coca féir.
The library will be clad in stone salvaged from the client’s grandmother’s birthplace, now a ruin, in nearby Doonshean. These weathered stones, rich with personal and cultural resonance, will anchor the new structure in both memory and place.
A transparent threshold, illuminated from above by a circular rooflight, links past and present. Inside, a sequence of naturally lit enfilade spaces provides layered sightlines through the house and library, extending outward to the surrounding fields and the distant Atlantic horizon. The vaulted ceiling enhances the sense of verticality and creates a contemplative atmosphere.
The material palette is intentionally restrained and tactile. Handmade oak shelving and plan chests line the interior, housing the client’s extensive book collection while serving as both functional storage and integrated seating.
A deep window seat, oriented toward sun, field and sea, offers a place of introspection—a quiet observatory for the shifting rhythms of light and landscape.
Project Collaborations:
Main Contractor: Gearóid Misteal + Team
Stone Mason: Aidan McKenna + Team
