Niall Montgomery (1915–87)

Employed as an architect by the OPW, Montgomery worked under Desmond FitzGerald on the design of the Dublin airport terminal building. Later in private practice, his conversion of the eighteenth-century stables and coach houses of Ormond Castle, Kilkenny city, into the Kilkenny Design Workshops (1963–5), acquired him one of the first three silver medals for conservation of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), covering the years 1946–76. A modernist architect, he was strongly against the wholesale demolition of historic buildings in Dublin. He served thirty-one consecutive years on the RIAI council (1952–82) and was the president (1976–77).