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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
March/April 2022 75
duplicity. Despite this, we managed once again
to hold the line and steer the group’s reports
from developer-friendly surrenders to solid
conservation manifestos.
History repeats
In 2015 we had worked with then Fianna Fáil
Senator Darragh O’Brien drafting his Moore
Street Renewal Bill which reimagined the area
as primarily a cultural and historic hub. It is a
compelling and detailed document. In the 2019
election he stood as a TD, winning a seat and
also becoming the Minister for Heritage. I
emailed him offering congratulations and
requesting an urgent meeting to discuss the Bill.
He replied warmly saying we’d be meeting very
soon.
Since then, despite numerous emails,
telephone calls and third-party interventions,
O’Brien has not met us. Worse still, Taoiseach
Micheál Martin held a behind-closed-doors
meeting with Hammerson reps and allowed his
praise of their planning application to be used
in a company press release to accompany that
planning application. A Taoiseach should never
comment on a live planning issue.
Following the City Council’s recent decision
we now face into our second Bord Pleanála oral
hearing, perhaps a judicial review, the Supreme
Court and if necessary the ECJ.
But we have in essence won the battle for
Moore Street. Our victory lies in the simple fact,
that though shabby, the 1916 terrace still
stands. There will be an election quite soon and
the main opposition party Sinn Féin has
committed to implement the vision we have
fought for.
Your sense of history need be no more acute
than your sense of irony to see parallels between
this behaviour and the Rising itself, with Fianna
Fáil somehow transformed into collaborators
with the old enemy, and the insurrection being
fought in windowless rooms. That the stakes are
so dierent is the legacy of those who fought
and died, around Moore St. The least we can do
is properly mark their legacy.
The Planning battle
Back in 2009, we faced our first Oral Hearing in
a Soviet style conference suite at Dublin’s
Gresham Hotel. Unlike Chartered Land we had no
planning experts batting for us, but fought hard
with an enthusiastic passion. Our case must
have imprinted on the inspector as she found in
our favour but her recommendation was not
followed by her own board. We had to go to
court.
Some Law
In 2016 on the centenary of the Rising relatives
of the 1916 leaders faced the Irish government
in the High Court - a strange place, the gimcrack
theatrics of its habitués chiming uneasily with
its institutional staleness. The state’s
appointment of Michael MacDowell as its lead
SC was a calculated insult considering his
grandfather’s attempt to call o the Rising.
Before proceedings started there was an attempt
by Hammerson to begin demolishing the terrace,
but a spontaneous rallying of campaigners led
to it being swiftly occupied while we sat in court.
The judge, Max Barrett, seemed something of a
maverick, with a background as a solicitor not a
barrister. The two-week hearing passed in an
indecisive fog of legalese and arcane ritual.
On 17 March 2016 Judge Barrett read his
judgment. It was framed in an impenetrable
language, but the repetition of the term “granting
relief” sounded positive. It was only when our
solicitor who sat facing me visibly slumped in his
chair that I knew something momentous had
happened. I asked him: “Have we won?”, He
replied “Everything”. Barrett had made much of
the site a National Monument. Unfortunately
ultimately the Supreme Court was to overturn
much of his imaginative and learned judgment.
MSAG
The government filibustered by cobbling
together the Moore Street Advisory Group,
essentially a talking shop for ‘stakeholders’ the
MSAG was suffocated by public-service
Background
The Battle of Moore Street is the longest-
running and most successful heritage campaign
in this State. The battle is over the site of
Ireland’s ‘Alamo’. undeniably the birthplace of
our Republic where leaders of the Rising
retreated from O’Connell St. In February 2022 it
celebrates its twenty-first birthday facing into a
second An Bord Pleanála Oral Hearing following
Dublin City Council’s planning permission in
January to UK Developer Hammerson to destroy
most of the most important modern historic site
in Dublin.
Modern History
In 1999 there was a planning application to
demolish the entire Moore St area. I contacted
the National Graves Association who whipped
up a campaign to take on the then owner of the
site, Chartered Land. What started out as a
small-scale campaign to save Number 16 Moore
Street where five signatories of the Proclamation
including James Connolly spent their last hours
as free men, expanded into a mass movement.
Blood descendants of the 1916 executed leaders
joined us, lending the campaign a unique
authenticity.
Over two decades the campaign met five
Taoisigh, seven successive Ministers of
Heritage, countless TDs, councillors, planners
and public servants. We encountered
unbelievable institutional incompetence and
dishonesty.
Countering this we hosted packed public
meetings, and staged street actions and guided
walking tours of the ‘battlefield ’.
In September 2021 the campaign launched to
widespread public approval our own vision for
Moore Street, complete with digital renderings
and a scale architectural model. And yet the
Government refuses do the proper thing and
compulsorily purchase the site.
The Battle for Moore St
Minister Darragh O’Brien will not discuss Rising relatives’
proposals. Taoiseach Micheál Martin held a behind-closed-doors
meeting with Hammerson and supported their scheme though
the Taoiseach should never comment on a live planning issue
By Patrick Cooney
A little bit of history repeating
ENVIRONMENT
Drrgh O’Briens
