The Sunday Times

Nobody has written so well about architecture in Ireland as Maurice Craig. A scrupulous stylist, blessed with a connoisseur’s eye, he effectively invented the genre more than half a century ago when he published his seminal work, Dublin 1660-1860, in 1952. But he doesn’t write if he can help it. "It’s a painful business," he says. The camera, on the other hand, has never brought him pain, even if he is quick to admit that some of his photographs, currently on display in the Irish Architectural Archive (IAA) in Dublin, are not masterpieces. "They are my holiday snaps," he says. "I had a habit of looking at buildings, both large and small, when others didn’t. In the 1940s and 1950s, I was almost the only person who took such photos.