kildare place

Thanks for that Hiivaladan. Interesting view from what seems to be 1956/57 – just look at that ‘rubble’ shoot coming out the window :(. Strangly agricultural gates to the left too.

The left-hand house is quite similar to the Georgian still standing across the road, now the Shelbourne car park, currently undergoing restoration. It’s of similar mid-century date, given how tiny the windows are, and of course the Venetian. I wonder if there were further houses to the left forming a terrace, prior to the construction of the National Musuem? Lovely little turreted curiousity to the right there too 🙂

As has been mentioned a few times on the site, the great sandstone Italinate chimney looming to the rear of the houses was formerly located on Earlsfort Terrace, built principally as the ventilation shaft and secondly as the campanile of the newly converted Royal University/UCD around 1885.

Interestingly, the clock and bells installed were the GPO’s 1818 originals.

In an extraordinary example of make-do-and-mend, the entire tower was dismantled around 1915 and re-erected behind the RUI’s city centre colleague’s premises: the Royal College of Science on Merrion Street. There it acted as a chimney stack for the complex’s new-fangled turf-fired heating system (though what they had used since the college’s completion in 1911 is open to question). Its rooftop was rather crudely converted from lofty pinnacle to industrial chimney pot, as can be seen in Hiivaladan’s picture.

The tower was finally dismantled in the early 1970s, probably as it posed a security risk to the Leinster House complex in the newly troubled North. The bells and clock faces remained dumped in the grounds of Earlsfort Terrace for about twenty years after the tower was moved – anyone any idea where they are now?

Interestingly, Kildare Place has another connection to Dublin Castle other than the fireplaces salvaged from Number 3 in the above picture – and indeed to the Italinate chimney. When Tracton House – a fine 1740’s house on the site of the red brick Bank of Ireland premises on the corner of Merrion Row beside the Shelbourne – was demolished in 1912, its magnificent Apollo Room or back drawing room was donated by the bank to the State. Curiously for so early in the 20th century, the National Museum built a seperate annex onto its complex in Kildare Place to house the room, and furnished it as an example of 18th century Irish craftsmanship. Here it remained until about 1939, when it was dismantled after the outbreak of war to provide extra space for storage of turf for the very central heating station pictured above! It was not without public outcry, with numerous mentions in contemporary newspapers.

The room, including its magnificent stucco ceiling and panelling was then put in storage, being shifted between the back of Iveagh House and the Royal Hospital (why was the RHK such a dumping ground over the years?!). Eventually, after the disasterous fire in the Castle in 1941, it was decided to incorporate it into the State Apartments, partially as compensation for the loss of the extraordinarily bizzare Presence Chamber that was completely destroyed. However, as the panelling, frieze and cornice had been hacked about so much over the years, there was no option but to reproduce in fascimile all but the ceiling of the room.

So hence the odd connection between the three places and structures 🙂

Thanks, Graham and Julius.These are fascinating pieces of history. 🙂 As Notjim noted,what a pity Kildare place can’t be re-instated in some way. It would be an attractive little square if not for that deadening wall. Perhaps now that they don’t have to worry so much about security something could be done. Pity about the Agriculture building, though. Too bad the de-centralisation programme couldn’t move it bodily and transplant it in the middle of a field of turnips in Offaly or Longford.