city centre

Dublin’s North City fell out of fashion after the flight of the future Duke of Leinster to Kildare St and the Act of Union. That’s more than two centuries ago and the journey back has been slow. It suffered shocking poverty over succeeding generations, the collapse of world-class mansions into tenements, dereliction, the flight of nearly all private residents and a drugs and crime epidemic. In the last twenty-five years it has been subjected to an inundation of third-rate private-sector apartments, the re- division of many old houses including the removal of period features and a pogrom of gang killings. It has also witnessed wholesale immigration and a degree of cultural diversity. It has a dramatic need for new apartments but the focus for new development in 2018 appears to be hotels and (high-quality if expensive) student housing, not – perhaps because standards are in flux – apartments. It seems likely a naïve Minister for Housing and Planning will indulge a reduction in building-height standards that may compromise perhaps the area’s principal attraction, its historic human scale. CONSERVATION The focus of this piece is on one small new pattern of development: some exciting conservation projects. ORMOND QUAY The construction of Ormond Quay Upper and Lower – named after James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde – began during the 1670s with the development of the former lands of St. Mary’s Abbey by Sir Humphrey Jervis, and with the setting out of a formal quay-line and carriageway as part of the Corporation’s grant of substantial lands to Jonathan Amory in 1675. These developments were facilitated by the construction of two bridges under the auspices of Jervis linking the walled medieval city with the new north-side suburbs: Essex Bridge (now Grattan Bridge), erected in the late 1670s, and Ormond Bridge (now O’Donovan Rossa Bridge), completed by 1684. The speculative development of the quay front soon followed, with the lands of Ormond Quay Upper developed as a fashionable residential parade with associated commercial uses under the freehold of Lord Santry, Henry Barry.   1-1A ORMOND QUAY LOWER The house on the corner of Capel Street and Lower Ormond Quay is most famous from its appearance on a late-18th-century Malton print (the ones you find on greasy place mats and on bathroom walls in Dublin 6) with a view across the river to the then Custom House where the Clarence Hotel now stands. It’s been derelict for twenty years since it served as offices for a solicitors firm fronted by Liam Cosgrave Junior who was disgraced after unedifying information about planning corruption emerged in the planning tribunal. It comprises an existing four-storey over basement protected structure with four bays and two shopfronts facing Ormond Quay and two bays with one shopfront facing Capel Street. The shopfronts are shuttered and now messy. There was previously a fast food restaurant at street level. The façade of the building is rendered and in a poor state of repair; however, there are interesting features including arched windows at first-floor level and corner quoins. Permission has been granted for development comprising conservation and a change of use at first, second and third floor levels from commercial occupancy to use as short-term-lease guest suites and change of use of the ground floor and basement to restaurant/cafe use, supervised by James Kelly of Kelly and Cogan Architects. Indeed it might be argued that in view of the strategic significance of the site, facing the overblown Temple Bar, in effect an ambassador for the North Side, public uses – pub or restaurant – might have been suitable for the entire building. The site of No 1 Capel Street was originally occupied by a larger house, which also occupied part of neighbouring plots. The exact age of the building is unclear but it is shown on a map dating from 1784, and also on a 1795 image by James Malton. The building was used as the state lottery office before 1800 and was then in a variety of uses including draper, feather merchant, stationer, bookseller and bookbinder in addition to briefly accommodating solicitors’ offices. By the mid-19th-century the building had been stucco-finished, with quoin detailing and decorative moulding added. The facade to the quays was partly blank but included an arched window at street level. During the Civil War in 1922 the façade and shopfront of the building were damaged. A new shopfront was then provided on the façade to Ormond Quay, which was divided into two parts and included a new entrance lobby onto the quays, though access to the building was, and remains, tricky with narrow pavement on two sides and a torrent of parking-free traffic down the quays. By the late 20th century the retail/commercial unit at ground floor level had been subdivided. It is stated that the building has been largely unaltered since the late eighteenth century, with the exception of the alterations to the shopfront and the plastering over the original brick façade. Original fabric, including the gothic rounded headed windows to Capel Street and the quays, survives, as do internal joinery works including architraves, staircase and doors. The building retains its commercial character, while the original plan form is substantially intact. 18 UPPER ORMOND QUAY On Upper Ormond Quay, to the South of the area, the Dublin Civic Trust is leading a project to restore an interconnected pair of riverfront merchant buildings. – the quayside house dates to 1842-43 and the rear building to the 1760s. The four-storey over basement house includes a rare arcaded Georgian shopfront composed from cut granite of, depending on who you listen to, a date of 1789 or around 1810. This is the most challenging and transformative building project the under-celebrated Trust has embarked on since its foundation in 1992 and is one of the most significant initiatives of its kind in Ireland. Both buildings require extensive structural stabilisation and careful conservation of fabric. The project will restore residential use to the upper floors and traditional shop use below. Number 18 started life as a river-fronting