O’ Connell Street, Dublin

Not until the Luas route is decided John. Which will be…

As mentioned above, what is probably the most ambitious development to occur on the street in relation to property improvement since the IAP was launched ten years ago was announced recently. Ulster Bank at Nos. 2-4 Lower O’Connell Street has lodged a planning application to reinstate its principal original shopfront and that of the adjoining No. 2 at street level as first built in the early 1920s. No. 3-4 is one of the grandest – if with a somewhat cumbersome attic storey – neoclassical buildings rebuilt post-1916 at the entrance to the street, with its distinctive copper dome piercing the middle of a terrace a unique feature in the city.

Here is the building today, competing with the adjacent Bank of Ireland to the left for dominance in the terrace. In spite of the dome, it loses the battle.

As mentioned, all of this side of the street up to Cathedral Street was completely destroyed in 1916 and took some seven years to rebuild. Ulster Bank was the last building to be finished , throwing open its doors in July 1923. The conservation report that accompanies the recent application gives a little new information, but doesn’t give a more rounded overview of the history of the structure which is a shame. As a commercial report I suppose one can hardly blame them.

Some of these images were posted before, but it’s worth popping them up again in this context.

Below shows the terrace in 1898, roughly as the Wide Streets Commission had left it around 1790, though of course with many Victorian alterations. The double-plot modern day Ulster Bank site is outlined.

Here it is again c. 1901 with the bombastic addition of the Bread Company building.

And again in April 1916. Oh dear.

In the aftermath, plans were drawn up by an expert committee including the City Architect CJ McCarthy for a unified terrace along this stretch and elsewhere, but these were never realised.

© Dublin City Council

They certainly would have given O’Connell Street a more formal air.

Nonetheless, the terrace was rebuilt in a coherent fashion, with a unified cornice line and standardised building materials of red brick, granite, Irish limestone and imported Portland stone.

This fascinating image from 1920 shows the terrace under construction. Evidently the opportunity was taken to regularise municipal services too!

Very clearly you can see the modern day Irish Nationwide building on the corner approaching second floor level, while the diminutive slivers of the newly built red brick buildings at No. 2 and further up at No. 5 are standing unsupported.

The modern day Bank of Ireland at No. 6-7 appears to be shrouded in scaffolding. The Ulster Bank plot is still largely vacant, as the bank only acquired it a year earlier in December 1918. The foundations were laid in 1919.

According to the conservation report, the building was designed by one James A. Hanna, a Belfast-based architect who had worked on other Ulster Bank branches in Dublin, and with sculptural decoration by C. W. Harrison and Sons of Dublin. Here is his original design which was largely executed. Thankfully the dome ditched its squat quality for a lofty elegance along the way, though the windows here are more picturesque, while not so welcome was the toning down of sculptural detail across the facade.

Conservation Report

Costs were cut through the omission of balustrading to the sides of the first floor, while the sculpture as executed is much more applied in appearance than the structural, masculine quality of the elements proposed above.

One would wonder about the mindset that wished to retain the ebullient date stamp yet maul the rest of the facade…

Interestingly, original granite and basement windows survive intact right down at the skirting of the shopfront. The night safe is possibly a little later in date, though the railings look original.

And surprise surprise – steel windows 🙂

The copper dome perched at the opposite end of the building is an elegant feature that aims to give the premises prominence in the wider cityscape. This something it achieves with considerable impact when composed as part of the Big Three heralding the entrance to the city’s main street from as far away as College Green.

Its curiously flattened scrolls are reminiscent of curled rolls of fizzy strawberry strips.

The impeccably proportioned portico looks humorously incongruous tacked onto the deadpan solidity of the wider granite facade, though largely because it has since lost the lower street level context.

In terms of materials, the steel windows of the charming oval windows to the upper ground floor (and seemingly the dome) are the sole indicators of 20th century construction.

Yup it’s a nasty blank stretch along there – it’ll make a world of difference to this part of the street.

It’ll be interesting to see what type of cladding method will be employed – i.e. either little more than granite tiling with thin side profiles exposed at corners, or proper fully hewn blocks (even if at the corners). Also coarsely grained Leinster granite will surely have to be sourced to get a decent match. I hope it’s intended to retain the original skirting – a feature that could easily slip through the net.

Incidentally, I’ve only just realised that Ulster Bank were those responsible for this high quality (if contentious ;)) reproduction job in Dundalk. There’s a pattern emerging here…

Both the central bays and left-hand pavilion are entirely reproduction, i.e. 60% of the building, dating from the late 1990s. In this case they used granite tiles to the ground floor, but the joins are so tight they’re barely noticable unless you’re up against them. Indeed if anything there’s a warmer patina off the reproduction granite!

Anyway the Dublin branch is an ever so slightly worthy case methinks 🙂

Cool interior pics of Irish Aid – love the contrast with the concrete and crisp plaster! Pity the funky ceilings are so peppered with services, but you can’t have everything. I like how this entire premises just uses Findlater House like a leech. It does its own thing – hosting itself in a decaying building, insidiously stripping it back to basics. Quite unique in the city.