The Westmeath County Buildings and Library, in the town of Mullingar, express the ambitious political and social agenda that held sway in Ireland in the first decade of the 21st century, before the country’s economic bubble collapsed.

Christ Church was one of four dozen iconic churches erected by Christopher Wren in the City of London after 1666, when the Great Fire annihilated much of the famous Square Mile—a world center, then and now, for trading and banking.

The Limerick County Council Headquarters belongs to an impressive series of new local government buildings erected throughout the Emerald Isle during the past decade, structures that gather council offices together, for the first time, in signature buildings.