The Irish Times

For anyone who cares about historic buildings, one of the most depressing sights these days is the proliferation of mega-skips outside period houses, sometimes overflowing with original fittings which their new owners have casually chosen to discard. They may invest £1m (euro 1.27m) or more in a sought-after Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian house, only to set about wrecking much of what made it attractive in the first place. More often than not, such travesties are the result of ignorance, stupidity or downright bad advice. There's a lot of ignorance about, says Frank Keohane, who compiled and edited Period Houses: A Conservation Guidance Manual, which has just been published by the Dublin Civic Trust. So many people are acquiring very valuable properties and yet they know so little about them.