MICHAEL MCCARTHY:MICHAEL McCARTHY, who has died aged 70, was an architectural historian and professor emeritus of art history at University College Dublin.
Particularly associated with the study of Gothic Revival architecture, his Origins of the Gothic Revival(1987) remains a seminal work. He was a much-loved educator and taught generations of students in Canada and Ireland.
Born in Bray, Co Wicklow, a town which remained close to his heart throughout life, he was one of twin sons of Michael Joseph McCarthy, who had served with Montgomery’s Desert Rats during the second World War, and his wife Mary Burke.
The young McCarthy demonstrated an early commitment to education by becoming a Christian Brother, before leaving the order and pursuing an academic career in architectural history.
He first studied art history at the University of Cambridge where he received his BA and MA. His undergraduate dissertation, which formed the basis for his first published articles in 1964 and 1965, was on Lord Sudeley, the owner-architect of Toddington Manor in Gloucestershire. This interest in amateur architects was expanded in his doctoral thesis at the Courtauld Institute, University of London, supervised by the distinguished scholar Sir Nikolaus Pevsner and completed in 1972.
His unravelling of the careers of neglected figures such as Sir Roger Newdigate and Thomas Pitt, Lord Camelford, led in turn to the study of major artists who they patronised, especially Piranesi and Sir John Soane, and ultimately to research into the Grand Tour. Many of his discoveries were published in the Burlington Magazine, Apollo and other art historical journals, and culminated in the 1987 publication, the Origins of the Gothic Revival.
He began his teaching career in Canada, holding a lectureship at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, between 1967 and 1969. However, it was at the University of Toronto that he found a more enduring academic home, serving from 1971 as assist professor of art education and from 1978 as associate prof and professor in the department of fine arts.
His association with Toronto only ended in 1994 when he returned to Ireland to become professor and head of the department of the history of art (now the school of art history and cultural policy) at UCD. In 1978 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of London. He was also a member of the Society of Architectural Historians.
His decade-long tenure at the helm of a UCD academic department was both colourful and eventful. He greatly expanded its teaching and research interests by adding the decorative arts and other subjects to the curriculum and making new appointments in Renaissance, Netherlandish and Graeco-Roman art. Other accomplishments included the introduction of a popular Masters programme in Palladian architecture, which he taught in collaboration with Dr Christine Casey, another of his recruits.
Field trips that they jointly led to Venice and the Veneto have become the stuff of legend.
Under his stewardship UCD’s programme in cultural policy and Arts Management was brought back under the auspices of the Art History department and its training course for arts administrators granted MA degree status.
His contribution to teaching and scholarship was recognised at his retirement by a symposium held in his honour at the Irish Architectural Archive in 2005. All of the speakers at this event were former students, collaborators or colleagues from his periods in Toronto and Dublin. The papers were later edited by Michael and Karina O’Neill and published as Studies in the Gothic Revival (2008). At UCD a fund was also established to endow an annual medal to be awarded in his honour to the student who obtains first place in the MA degree in art history by examination and thesis.
With remarkable irony, the Michael McCarthy Medal was presented to the 2009 recipient on the day of his funeral.
McCarthy radiated warmth and conviviality. Although he wore his learning lightly, his range of knowledge was impressive and his infectious enthusiasm and good humour permeated his lectures. He ran the UCD art history department in a benign way and with the lightest of touches administratively and was a staunch opponent of managerialism.
Almost uniquely he exercised an open-door policy, where students and colleagues could drop by unannounced and receive fatherly advice and encouragement. He had an unrivalled gift for celebration. The achievements of colleagues, students, and family, and important milestones, became occasions of communal rejoicing with McCarthy acting as a flamboyant master of ceremonies and invariably delivering an exuberant speech in his witty and florid style.
Despite ill health, he continued with his researches after retirement. James Cavanah Murphy, an 18th-century Irish draughtsman who published illustrated accounts of visits to Portugal and Spain, was a particular preoccupation and several articles on this subject have already appeared or are in press. A series of collected essays entitled Classical and Gothic: Studies in the History of Art was published by Four Courts Press in 2005.
He is survived by three sisters, Marie (Kelly), Carmel (Clarke) and Vera (Delacourt), nieces and nephews. A brother and sister predeceased him.
Michael Joseph McCarthy: born April 27th, 1939; died 1st March, 2010