{"id":302696,"date":"2026-01-25T09:19:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T09:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/302696\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T09:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T09:19:12","slug":"mary-osullivan-meets-maria-and-david-bourke-and-their-architect-son-robert-bourke-who-redesigned-their-home-in-dalkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/302696\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary O&#8217;Sullivan meets Maria and David Bourke and their architect son Robert Bourke who redesigned their home in Dalkey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">\nMaria and David Bourke decided to move house one summer when their eldest Robert was away. On his return, he could see problems with the new home, but fortunately, he went on to become an architect and has helped his parents with a redesign they love\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"David and Maria Bourke in the living room of their home which their son Robert redesigned. The room originally had a triangular bay window and one of Robert\u2019s innovations was to give it a big rectangular bay window with new views to the garden and to the Dalkey quarry. Photo: Tony Gavin\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/5d71f10d-7772-4823-b849-0ecdf225a49b.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">David and Maria Bourke in the living room of their home which their son Robert redesigned. The room originally had a triangular bay window and one of Robert\u2019s innovations was to give it a big rectangular bay window with new views to the garden and to the Dalkey quarry. Photo: Tony Gavin<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">One of the things parents endlessly ruminate about is how their children will turn out, and what they will become. It can be hard to determine when one week the five-year-old is insisting on putting on a nightly show that is essential watching \u2013 \u201cAh,\u201d the parents think, \u201che\u2019s going to be the future Paul Mescal\u201d \u2013 while another week he\u2019s excelling at sports \u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s obvious he\u2019ll be the next Johnny Sexton.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Maria and David Bourke always had an inkling that their eldest Robert would become an architect \u2013 as a teenager he was into decorating his own bedroom and he devoured Maria\u2019s interior design books and Habitat brochures. Sure enough, though he took a roundabout route, becoming a structural engineer first, that\u2019s what Robert\u2019s career is and to their delight he\u2019s won awards for his work, especially in the area of sustainability. Even more satisfying is the fact that he redesigned their home, making it a more workable, sustainable and welcoming space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maria and David Bourke decided to move house one summer when their eldest Robert was away. On his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[365,362,363,364,366,18,117,19,17,4746,4850],"class_list":{"0":"post-302696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-life-magazine","18":"tag-mary-osullivan"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115954998509782080","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}