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All over Ireland, one of the biggest bestsellers of 1971 was a DIY manual called Bungalow Bliss by Jack Fitzsimmons (“Six Plans and Six Specifications for only One Hundred Pounds”). Landing in the hands of eager, would-be homeowners, the book was a detailed how-to on building a small home. And following Fitzsimmons’ success, a rash of owner-built, single-story houses began to spread across the dramatic Donegal coastline.
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"“Everybody told us the planning permission would be a nightmare,” Ms. Weir added. Although Ireland’s relatively new prosperity has led to a spate of home building in the last decade, planning commissions have not rushed to embrace innovative architecture. The dominant model for the appropriate rural house — a thick-walled, pitched-roof cottage — was set in 1972 by the house-pattern book “Bungalow Bliss,” by Jack Fitzsimons, which has been reprinted many times and has become a bible for both developers and planners."
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One-off housing is a term used in Ireland to refer to the building of individual rural houses, outside of towns and villages. The term is used to contrast with housing developments where multiple units are constructed as part of a housing estate or city street. Less commonly, the term is used to refer to infill housing in suburban areas. There is currently much debate about the desirability of this type of development.
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Bibliography of other Irish architectural books by Jack Fitzsimons published in Kells, Co. Meath
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Photos of Fitzsimon's book which appears to retail second hand at over £200.
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“They lie scattered haphazardly across the Irish countryside. To some, they represent a horrific, cancerous blight, an evil design slung in manic disarray onto our fertile, green land. To others, up to one-third of the Irish population, they are the “preferred dwelling” and an integral part of what makes us who we are.”
