Background
He was born in Belfast in 1919, in a prosperous presbyterian family, though he later rejected his unionist background in favour of socialism and atheism and respect for Irish culture.
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Maurice Craig
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Education
He attended Castle Park School in Dalkey, Dublin, Shrewsbury School in England, Magdalene College, Cambridge, then returned to Ireland where, persuaded by poet Patrick Kavanagh, he completed a doctorate at Trinity College Dublin on the works of the early 19th-century English poet Walter Savage Landor.
Career
Craig became active in Dublin architecture conservation in the 1940s. From 1952, he worked in London in the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments, but left in 1970 to join An Taisce in Dublin as its full-time executive secretary. Craig was a prolific photographer of buildings.
He donated his large collection to the Irish Architectural Archive in 2001, and anthologies of his photos have been published in book form.
His books include:
The Volunteer Earl (1948) - a biography of James Caulfeild, 1st Earl of Charlemont
Irish Bookbindings 1600-1800 (1954) - a history of Irish bookbinding
Dublin 1660-1860: The Shaping of a City (1952, 1969) - an influential work at a time of crisis for Dublin"s colonial architecture
Ireland Observed (1970, 1980, with Desmond Fitzgerald) - a survey of Irish buildings
Classic Irish Houses of the Middle Size (1976) - a survey of 17th/18th/19th-century houses of the minor gentry
The Architecture of Ireland from the Earliest Times to 1880 (1982)
The Elephant and the Polish Question (1990) - a varied collection of essays
Cats and their Poets: An Anthology (2002) - a collection of ancient and modern poems about cats
Mausolea Hibernica (2009) - a survey of mausoleums in Ireland
Poems - a collection of poetry
Photographs (2011) - a collection of architectural photographs taken by Craig around Ireland
Craig was married three times.
