David Byrne, Denis McCullough, Vivian Lavan and Ian Candy are not, collectively, household names in Ireland, but they should be.

She started her own practice in the mid-1980s, in the midst of recession. In 2011, not much has changed for Ireland. Now a director of FLAC, Noeline Blackwell still sees first-hand the look of despair on people’s faces, writes Kyran Fitzgerald