Pat Liddy

Pat Liddy (Irish: Pádraig Ó Lideadha, born 1944 in Dublin) is an Irish artist, historian, writer, illustrator, broadcaster, mapmaker, and environmental lobbyist who has helped make Dublin a global tourist attraction. The author and illustrator of over seven books on the city, as well as others on Irish cultural sites, he is the walking tour operator of Pat Liddy's Walking Tours of Dublin.

He grew up in the inner north city suburb of Phibsborough, the only child of Brendan (born St Peter’s Road, Phibsborough) and Maureen (née Mac Mahon) from Kilmainhamwood, County Meath. He was fortunate to have as a playground the semi-rural surrounds of the Royal Canal, the nearby Botanical Gardens and the Victorian urban landscape which helped to fuel his artistic imagination and love of history. He was educated at St. Vincent's CBS, Glasnevin.

Always interested in art, Pat Liddy entered and won several art competitions as a teenager and young adult. One such endeavour, a balsa wood model of his imaginary concept for a then proposed Roman Catholic cathedral in Dublin, is today on view in the Tara’s Palace Museum of Childhood in Powerscourt House in Co. Wicklow.

Liddy had initially wanted to be an architect but disliked the way architecture was developing in the early 1960s, especially in his native Dublin, and decided instead to join the national airline, Aer Lingus, in April 1963. In this capacity, he took the opportunities from discounted travel to travel all over the world. These experiences only reinforced Liddy’s growing certainty that Dublin was one of the great but undervalued cities of Europe.

Using his skills of self-taught architectural draftsmanship and general artistic ability, Liddy started to paint and draw scenes from the urban landscape in an attempt to bring attention to the uniqueness and charm of Dublin before those places disappeared forever. The 1970s was a time when a good deal of second-rate redevelopment was clearing away much of the run-down but historic fabric of the city in the name of progress.

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Wikipedia