Adrian Duncan:
Little Republics – The Story of Bungalow Bliss

Adrian Duncan’s new publication is the culmination of long-term research into the cultural impact of Bungalow Bliss, a collection of affordable house designs that resulted in tens of thousands of new dwellings appearing in Irish towns and countryside. Duncan grew up in one such house in Longford, an upbringing that has influenced much of his recent artistic and literary work.

Bungalow Bliss first appeared in 1971 as a self-published catalogue, drafted and distributed out of a car by Jack and Anne Fitzsimons to newsagents, petrol stations and bookshops. Over the course of the next thirty years, the Fitzsimons sold over a quarter of a million copies. The first edition contained twenty designs – the final edition contained two hundred and sixty. In his appraisal, Duncan looks at what these houses are, why they look the way they do, and why they were so popular with the inhabitants of rural Ireland yet aggressively dismissed by many in the architecture profession. This legacy has radically transformed the Irish landscape and its history of dwelling, and Duncan asks what meaning and value this ageing housing stock has in today’s society.

Little Republics: The Story of Bungalow Bliss accompanies a 2023 exhibition by Adrian Duncan curated by Askeaton Contemporary Arts and the Irish Architectural Archive in Dublin, and is now available to purchase directly from Lilliput Press.