Moore Street buildings linked to 1916 Rising designated for protection

Six buildings associated with the 1916 Rising Moore Street battlefield site have been designated for addition to the Record of Protected Structures (RPS), almost seven years after Dublin City Councillors voted for their protection.

Councillors had sought protection for a total of 12 buildings on Moore Street and surrounding lanes, but the council’s conservation section on Tuesday recommended that just half of these should be listed.

A number of the buildings are due for demolition or partial demolition under UK property group Hammerson's plans for the redevelopment of the 5.5 acre site stretching from the old Carlton cinema on O'Connell Street to Moore Street, Henry Street and Parnell Street.

The council's conservation section has recommended that numbers 10 and 20/21 Moore Street and parts of the buildings at 12 and 13 Moore Street be added to the RPS. It also recommended the listing of the ground floor facades of 17-18 Henry Place and the O'Brien's Mineral Water Building at 4-8 Henry Place, which was of historical significance due to its "direct connection with the events of the 1916 Rising and its occupation following the evacuation from the GPO".

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Councillors had also sought protected structure status for number 10 Henry Place, the former "White House", which was occupied and held by Michael Collins during the Rising.

‘No relationship’

However, senior planner Paraic Fallon said while the association of this location with the Rising was of "national historical, cultural and social significance", the structure now on this site was built in the 1920s and "bears no discernible relationship to the former three-bay, three-storey, hipped roof, tenement building described in witness statements from the period as the 'White House'".

Similarly, Mr Fallon said five buildings on Moore Street, which the councillors put forward for listing, were also built after the Rising, mostly dating from the 1960s to the 1980s, with one built in 2003. These modern buildings were not of any special interest Mr Fallon said, and bore “no relationship to the former buildings that survived the 1916 Rising”.

On Tuesday, local councillors endorsed the initiation of listing of the six buildings recommended by the council planners, but did not accept that the remaining six should not also be listed and have deferred a decision on their future until next month.

The State-owned National Monument buildings at 14-17 Moore Street are already designated for protection. However, in 2016 the High Court ordered the protection of nearly all of the buildings on the east side of Moore Street, as well as the laneways leading to it.

Battlefield site

Mr Justice Max Barrett declared the buildings a 1916 Rising battlefield site that collectively constitute a national monument. This protected all of the buildings which the councillors want to be added to the RPS, but the State appealed his decision and it was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2018.

Hammerson will have an opportunity to make a submission to the council on the listing of the first six buildings as part of the public consultation process on their addition to the RPS. A spokesman for the company declined to comment on the planned addition of the buildings to the RPS.

The company was earlier this year granted permission by the council for two of its first three planning applications for a mixed retail, office and residential scheme on the 5.5 acres site.

The two applications have been appealed to An Bord Pleanála while the third is still under determination by the council. The company plans to develop the site under six separate planning applications.