House Michael Collins occupied during Rising could be destroyed

A house occupied and held by iconic Fine Gael hero Michael Collins during the 1916 Rising will be demolished under a consent order issued by the Government to preserve buildings on Dublin's Moore Street, it has been claimed.

Independent TD Maureen O’Sullivan said the decision by the Minister for Heritage to preserve numbers 14- 17 Moore Street as the buildings where the surrender was signed, was insufficient.

The Dublin Central TD insisted that “misleading information and misinformation” led to the consent order being signed for the area, owned by developers Chartered Land Ltd.

She said that apart from 14-17 Moore Street, “the whole area is a monument” and other buildings had been identified as having significance in the events of the Easter Rising.

“O’Brien’s mineral water building in Henry place was occupied by the volunteers,” she said. “The white house in Henry Place was occupied and held by Michael Collins and Cogan’s in number 10 Moore Street was where the first council of war was held and where there was an overnight stay.”

Ms O’Sullivan added that bottling stores were occupied by Frank Henderson and Hanlon’s at 20-21 Moore Street was where the surrender order was accepted by the volunteers, after consultation with three of the leaders of the Rising Thomas Clarke, Joseph Plunkett and Seán MacDiarmada.

But in the Dáil this week Minister for Heritage Heather Humphreys rejected the claim and said "I do not accept the suggestion that the decision made by my predecessor was based on misleading or inaccurate information".

Ms Humphreys, who has responsibility for the Rising’s centenary commemorations, said the methodology for reviewing the area was agreed by the department’s national monument service and the director of the National Museum of Ireland.

“The assessment was carried out by an eminent archaeologist and historian and the department is satisfied with the quality of the research.”

The Minister, who will next week meet relatives of those involved in the Rising, insisted that she would not be seeking a further assessment and she rejected calls by Ms O’Sullivan and Sinn Féin heritage spokeswoman Sandra McLellan to reassess the decision.

Ms O’Sullivan and Ms McLellan have repeatedly raised the issue of the preservation of Moore Street in the Dáil in the lengthy controversy over the re-development of the area as a shopping destination.

Ms McLellan, disputing the information the department acted on, said the evidence existed to show that “many of the structures alleged to be post-1916 do in fact predate the Easter Rising”.

She said the facade of number 18 Moore Street was identified as a pre- 1916 structure that was still standing in 1916, but this fact was omitted from the report of the “battlefield” site.

Ms Humphreys said however that most of the building on Moore Street had been extensively altered since 1916 and “retain little of the character of that time”, which was why the substantially intact structures at 14-17 Moore Street, took on a greater significance.

Ms Humphreys added that her remit as Minister was confined to the boundaries of the national monument site at 14-17. She said Dublin city council was responsible for the development of the wider area.

Warning that the comprehensive assessment was flawed Ms O’Sullivan said “someone must call a halt before its mistakes are compounded”.

She added that while Moore Street was now derelict it had considerable potential for business and housing.

Ms Humphreys said her department had “dealt comprehensively” with correspondence from the solicitor of the relatives about numbers 13, 18 and 19 Moore Street, who want them preserved.

“These building are outside the bounds of the preservation order covering the national monument,” she said. The requirement for Ministerial consent was specifically related to damage that could be done to the monument buildings at 14-17 by the demolition of surrounding buildings.