| Dublin’s Fair City By Malcolm
Rogers
Malcolm Rogers has a look at a new book about Dublin’s architectural
gems — and recommends some gripping architectural tours.
Dublin teems with historical building, from the elegant Georgian houses
of Merrion Square to the magnificence of Trinity College. The city has always
been a small capital by international standards, yet this spellbinding architecture
justifies its former status, coined during Georgian times, as being “the
second city of the Empire”.
Fortunately Dublin has now rid itself of this baleful title and is today
one of the first cities in Europe. However, the old architecture remains,
and Yale University Press’s publication The Buildings of Ireland: Dublin
by Christine Casey is a comprehensive guide to the buildings of central
Dublin — covering the area within the two canals plus Phoenix Park.
Fascinating details on the churches, public buildings and streets are
included in this academic but very readable survey. All the grand 18th century
set pieces are present and correct — the Four Courts, Christchurch and the
Custom House — as well as some lesser known architectural gems, such as
the former Debtor’s Prison, the City Fruit and Vegetable Wholesale market
and one of my own favourites, St. Michan’s Church in the Markets area.
George Moore wrote of Dublin as a city ‘wandering between mountain and
sea’, and to an extent it is these geographical limitations which have characterised
Dublin over the centuries since its establishment almost 1,000 years ago
as a Viking settlement.
Just a few of the buildings to look out for:
The Custom House
Trophy buildings — also sometimes called “up yours” architecture — come
no finer than the Custom House building situated on the banks of the Liffey.
Unrivalled among the neo-classical buildings of the city, this was, remarkably,
James Gandon’s first large-scale commission. Beginners luck, maybe, but
James did Dublin proud with this impressive edifice.
The Custom House came about as the result of a decades-old campaign to
move Dublin’s shipping downstream to a site beside the rapidly expanding
eastern suburbs. By the end of the 18th century this was achieved and work
on the building began.
For those of you reading this who live in south east London, the dome
of the Custom House may have a familiar ring about it — it was modeled by
Gandon on Christopher Wren’s Greenwich Hospital.
Christine Casey’s book is extremely informative about the other influences
which you can see during a gander round Gandon’s masterpiece — the Tuscan
order of the pillars, the Portland stone used in the central portico and
the granite from the Wicklow Hills.
The GPO
Perhaps Dublin’s most evocative building because of its connections with
the 1916 uprising, the General Post Office was constructed by Francis Johnston
1814-1818, and rebuilt 1924-9. The original building, which of course served
as the headquarters of the 1916 Rebels, was extensively damaged during the
hostilities and more or less was reduced to a burnt out shell. Edward Smyth’s
statues of Hibernia, Mercury and Fidelity were damaged, but have recently
been replaced with casts and today tower over O’Connell Street.
Inside, the place has been completely restored, and looks like the stylish
interior of some great Art Deco hotel, with its green Connemara marble pillars,
its extensive wrought iron grills and huge carved oaken counters and desks.
Even the extremely impressive statue of Cú Chulainn cast in bronze wouldn’t
look out of place in a 1930s belle époque French railway station. Fashioned
by Oliver Sheppard 1911-12, his plaster figure was purchased by the State
in 1935 as a memorial to 1916, and cast in bronze by a Belgian firm.
Liberty Hall
Liberty Hall on Eden Quay is, according to author Christine Casey, “by
no means a beautiful building, but not a bad one”. Which leaves plenty of
room for debate.
What is beyond dispute, however, is that it is currently Dublin’s tallest
building. Liberty Hall is also the city’s most conspicuous example, according
to Ms Casey, of International Modernism, a style which sounds more like
a political movement, but I guess just means the building would be at home
in any major capital of the world these days.
Liberty Hall, like many buildings in Dublin, has had a turbulent history.
Now the headquarters of Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, the
original building served as a soup kitchen during the Dublin Lockout of
1913 and later as the headquarters of James Connolly’s Irish Citizen Army.
The Proclamation of Independence was printed there on Easter Sunday 1916,
after which it was largely destroyed by shelling. It was patched up and
struggled on until 1958.
The new building, designed by Desmond Rea O’Kelly, was finished in the
1960s and its low brick-clad hall leading to the 17-storey tower has become
a landmark down on the quays.
Rotunda Hospital
The Rotunda Hospital, Parnell Street, was — according to this guide —
the first charitable “lying-in” hospital in these islands. Now, I have to
confess, I’d never specifically heard of a “lying-in” hospital (as opposed
to any other kind) but it’s amazing what you learn every day.
The Rotunda, that unmistakable building at the end of O’Connell Street,
boasts the finest church interior in Ireland. The chapel of the hospital
— the rotund part of the Rotunda if you like — is the jewel of the complex
building.
Designed 1751-7 by the nearly aptly named Richard Castle and John Ensor,
the opening of the hospital was the fulfillment of the efforts of Dr Bartholomew
Mosse, whose experience of midwifery amongst the poor of Dublin moved him
to establish the place.
The hospital opened on December 8, 1757, when 52 women ‘great with child’
were admitted.
Trinity College
For anyone who has ever visited Dublin, probably nowhere sums up the
city better than Trinity College. The alma mater of Goldsmith, Thomas Moore,
Edmund Burke and Samuel Beckett, Trinity is also the home of probably the
most famous book in the western world, the Book of Kells.
Situated on College Green opposite the home of the first Dáil, the university
boasts the largest group of 18th century buildings in Ireland and the most
complete college campus of the period in these islands.
Of course, Trinity College dates back later than the 18th century — to
1592 in fact — when it gained its full name: College of the Holy and Undivided
Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin.
Nowadays occupying some 47 acres, the red brick Rubrics of 1700 facing
the main entrance are the oldest surviving parts of the campus.
You could spend a week just wandering about this immensely impressive
site — if time is short however, don’t miss the Long Room of the Old Library
(where the Book of Kells is situated). So beautiful is this library, the
director of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones George Lucas is reckoned to
have nicked the design and used it in his film as the Jedi Archives. There
were reports that Trinity considered legal action, but the matter was eventually
dropped.
The Pro Cathedral
The Pro Cathedral, or St. Mary’s Cathedral to give it its Sunday best
name, has since its inception played a central role in the affairs of the
State.
The remains of Daniel O’Connell, Éamon de Valera and Michael Collins
lay here in state, and in 1903 John McCormack began his singing career here
with the famous Palestrina Choir.
The model for Dublin’s main Catholic cathedral was the church of St.
Phillipe du Roule in Paris, a neo-classical design which oddly enough, sits
in very well with its 18th century near neighbours.
Inside, influences range from Greek temple to Gothic. The stained window
— with representations of the Blessed Virgin, St. Laurence O’Toole and St.
Kevin, is as beautiful and moving a work of art as any in these islands.
The Buildings of Ireland, Dublin by Christine Casey, is available from
Yale University Press, New Haven and London.
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