We all relate readily to doorways - the possibilities they open up, their romance. The doorway tells us much about a building, its purpose and its occupier; and it has, throughout the ages, attracted the art of the designer and the skill of the craftsman perhaps more than any other architectural element. Michael Fewer takes a relaxed and imaginative look at how the idea of the entrance to a building has been dealt with by the builders, designers and craftsmen of Ireland from the earliest times until the present day. He considers function, style, composition, components and materials, together with design influences. The doors he examines range from the humblest to the most impressive, and from the architecturally significant to the whimsical, from the Seefin cairn at Kilbride, County Wicklow, dating from 3000 BC, to the eighteenth-century doors of Merrion Square, Dublin, and, coming right up to date, the doors of the National Gallery Millennium Wing. Describes and illustrates 54 doorways all over Ireland, from Neolithic times to the present day Provides a unique slant on the colourful history and architecture of Ireland By a knowledgeable and popular author

Photographs by: Michael Fewer