Biography

From Find A Grave: "He was an Irish architect, best known for building the General Post Office (GPO) on O'Connell Street, Dublin. son of William Johnston, also an architect. He studied architecture and practised in Armagh for some years before moving to Dublin about 1793.[1] In 1805 he was appointed to the Board of Works as an architect. In 1824 he was made president of the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts which had been founded the previous year, and he provided headquarters for the Academy in Lower Abbey Street at his own expense. His work is interesting from an architectural point of view, in that it spans both the Neo-Classical and Neo-Gothic styles. His Chapel Royal in Dublin Castle (1807–1814) is a fine example of an early Gothic revival church in Dublin. On this project (as on many others) he worked closely with the stuccodore George Stapleton, son of the better-known Michael Stapleton. The chapel proved a seminal building for later Gothic revival architects in Ireland, with the Cork architect Thomas Deane using the detailing from the windows as a model for those of the Aula Maxima of Queens College Cork. Among his other most notable projects were the construction of St. George's Church on the North side of Dublin (1802), overseeing the conversion of Parliament House into the Bank of Ireland (1803) and the construction of the Richmond Tower at the junction of Watling Street and Queen's Bridge in 1812. He was also responsible for the design of Charleville Forest Castle in Tullamore, County Offaly, considered one of the finest of its type in the country.[11] As well as the 1807 design of Ballycurry House, Ballycurry Demesne, Ashford, County Wicklow."

WHS mentioned him in his letter after he visited the Chapel Royal in Dublin during his 1833 travels.