Kevin Sweeney

I often think Jack Fitzsimons and Richard Lovett Pearse were the two most influential architects in irish histoy. Fitzsimons stated the bungalow revolution and Lovett Pearse the Palladian revolution. Lovett Pearse designed among others, Castletown House, 9 and 10 Henrietta Street, the Houses of Parliament on College Green and Bellamont House. Lovett Pearse definetly wins on aesthetics.

This is the state of play with my next exhibition titled "The Irish House, 900 to 2026", I have set a deadline of October 1st to have it ready. I'm a bit more than half way there, as I'm planning to have 30 models, from a ring fort to a modern mansion. The bottom photo shows the development of rural working class housing from 1600 to 1990.

The roof is done with Scalescenes textures, so printed out, cut into stips and glued on.

Navan Station is finished. Customer is collecting it today

Getting close to a finish on Navan Station. The model will not have any canopies, some plints on the wings and downpipes will finish it.

it is a difficult style to model for sure, but a beautiful iconic style. It's long been my intention to model a classic GNR building.

Current state of play with Navan station.

I can empatise with your loss, as my wife passed away 22 months ago, after an 8 year long illnesss. For those 8 years I was her full time carer. We all handle grief differently, but for me model making was therapy and my salvation. I started model making as a distraction, for those 8 years it kept me sane. In the 22 months since she passed model making has continued to be my salvation. The beauty of model making is that it requires total focus, when you're cutting a piece, there is nothing else in that moment but that line you're cutting. Giving how mad the world is getting that ability to ignore it all and just focus on the job in hand is a wonderfull form of escapism. A good friend who also lost his wife said to me, you learn to live with it, your get on with it, but the world without them will always be a lesser place.

I done it in Inkscape, using photos to get the colours. It took a while and there were many steps in the process. I've long wanted to do a GNR building with the polycromatic brick, it's such a distincitive style.

I'm working on a OO model of Navan Station. It is my second commission.

i have a load of British rolling stock from the late 1950 and early 1960s, and figurines and vehicles from that era. But I would model Irish buildings. So my prospective layout might have the Flying Scotsman, with a rake of Gresley Coaches passing through an Irish GNR or MGW station. Either way I'll be trying to evoke the feel of the drumlin region, which would make me lean towards GNR.

Thanks Patrick. It's great to see one of my models on a layout, it's given me a hankering to do a layout. Once I get my next exhibition completed, I think doing a small layout is on the cards. I've already got the baseboard done and all the hardware bought. It's just a case of making the time to build it.

I've also been making some progress on my next exhibition. This is a model of Nixon's House, Fortland, Ballymachugh, Co Cavan. This house was once part of the Maxwell Estate. It was the house of the Land Agent. It was here that tenants of the estate came to pay their rents. It is widely regarded as the oldest house in the locality.

The Connolly Shed is installed on the customers layout

I will ask the customer to send me a photo of the shed installed on the layout

Just a few finishing touches left to do, but basically the Connolly Shed is finished.

Current state of play with the Connolly Shed. It's due for delivery to the customer in just over a week.

The wall panels are done. Next job is to assemble them. Then the shed will really begin to take shape.

The Connolly Engine Shed build has begun. Wall panels are all cut and the rear wall facade is done.

You're welcome.

This is the third draft of the plan, so we are at or close to a final version. As soon as the plan is finalised the build will commence. I will post regular updates here of progress. I can't wait to get started. I've done some test cuts on 2 mm greyboard with my cricut cutting machine and it works well. That's a blessing, cutting this much 2mm greyboard by hand would be a huge task for my late middle aged hands to attempt.

I'm working on a commission for a customer, of a 7 bay OO model based on the engine shed in Connolly Station, this is the plan I've come up with. A full model of the Connolly shed including all 18 bays would be 1008 mm long in OO, so this is a compressed version to fit on the customers layout. The model will have open loco doors and be used to store locos. I've never built such a big model without an internal skeleton before, so I'm going to use 4 layers of 2 mm greyboard for the walls. I usually build walls with 2 layers of 1 mm greyboard and an internal skeleton. The walls of this model will be 8 mm thick, which should give a strong structure.

The stone texture sheet is generated from a photo. I got the footprint from the OS map and the basic structure from drone footage I found on youtube. I drew the building in Inkscape, the free drawing app, printed out the card parts and cut them by hand, applied the cover sheets and assembled them. The slates are from Scalesenes. It would fit in nicely on a Co Antrim layout.

Go raibh maith agat, a Phádraig. It is a wonderful building. The moment I saw a photo of it, I knew I had to make it.

I got distracted from modelling for the last 6 weeks, I've been investing a lot of my time trying to learn to speak Irish. But I'm getting back to model making again. I've nearly finished a model of Galgorm Castle, just outside Ballymena, which is a beautiful Jacobean house. Built in 1618. A rare survivor from that period.