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UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies

Clinton Institute Building

The UCD Clinton Institute is housed in the beautifully restored 19th Century Belfield House, which was originally built in 1801 by Ambrose Moore of the La Touche banking family.  The house nestles high on a raised site which overlooks Dublin Bay, with elm and beech trees lining what was a former terraced walk above a sunken garden.  Its entrance hall and Oval Room boast fine-neo-classical plasterwork in the Adams style- common to many of the fine Dublin houses of the day.  The Oval Room was a feature of many great Irish houses, and Irish-born architect James Hoban is believed to have been inspired by these when designing the White House in Washington, making it an appropriate link to it’s current home for the UCD Clinton Institute.

Architects for the restoration project were Fitzgerald Kavanagh

“We have restored the integrity of the spacious reception rooms on the ground floor and removed any unsympathetic add-ons from over the years”

says Anne Fitzgerald.  The fine reception rooms are now used for a purpose not unlike their original usage, to receive important visitors to the Campus and the Institute.