Niall McCullough studied architecture at University College Dublin and in Rome, where he spent a year drawing and coming to understand the relationship between architecture and time, planning a practice with Valerie Mulvin which would include writing, research and making buildings. On his return to Ireland and encouraged by Aldo Rossi, they collaborated on the seminal book A Lost Tradition, the nature of architecture in Ireland which explored the typological nature of Ireland’s vernacular buildings, then founded McCullough Mulvin Architects in 1986. The practice has gone on to produce numerous award-winning buildings in Ireland and internationally.

Niall’s later books, such as Dublin, An Urban History and Palimpsest: Intervention & Change in Irish Architecture, reflect particular interests both in the power of contemporary architecture to shape the future of Dublin and in the innovative re-use of existing fabric to achieve it - exploring these ideas through writing and building in the Georgian core.

Tragically, Niall died in 2021 after a short illness, before the completion of his last building Printing House Square in Trinity College Dublin, and before this last book Dublin – Creation, Occupation, Destruction could be published.