1-3 Sandwith Street Upper
There can be few more rundown residential stretches in Dublin 2 than the two-storey late-Victorian redbrick houses at numbers 1-3 Sandwith Street. However, these buildings are just the most visible facade of a block of dereliction stretching from Fenian Street to Bass Place.
The three houses on Sandwith Street have largely been in commercial use for more than 40 years, with a glass and mirror supplier and a financial adviser the most recent occupants, but these businesses left between 10 and 15 years ago. Behind the buildings, in what were once gardens, is a jumble of industrial units. Behind that again are six more derelict houses on Bass Place.
[ Derelict Dublin: 10 empty northside buildings in a city with a housing crisisOpens in new window ]
For several years the O’Callaghan Hotel group has been buying properties in the block and, five years ago, sought to acquire a block of 14 dilapidated senior citizens flats at the corner of Fenian Street and Sandwith Street to include in its development plan. In exchange the council would get 28 new apartments in a separate block developed by the hotel, but councillors refused to approve the deal.
The hotel decided to press ahead without the council complex. In 2020 its development company Gold Run Properties sought to demolish five of the Bass Place houses, but this was refused due to the “loss of the original historic fabric” without any replacement homes. It then lodged a plan for a large-scale demolition and apartment development on the site and in recent months has been granted permission for 82 apartments from three to 10 storeys.
At the Sandwith Street frontage, the facades of the three houses will be retained, but an extra one to two storeys will be built on top. Separately, the council plans to demolish its own block, St Andrew’s Court, and build 33 new homes. - Olivia Kelly
112-114 Townsend Street
At the corner of Townsend Street and Lombard Street in Dublin’s south inner city is a stretch of three properties in various states of decay.
Number 114 still has its Guinness sign, the only remaining indication it was a pub, the Countess Markievicz; number 113 was a chipper, the Seashell Fish Bar, with flats above. Both closed decades ago but the premises are still largely intact. All that remains of number 112 is an impressive-looking stone doorway with the number etched into the pediment.
This too was a pub, the Grand, and it was indeed once a grand three-storey 19th century building. In 1999, when it was already long closed, an application was made to Dublin City Council to demolish it and the chipper, and build a six-storey apartment block, but it was later withdrawn.
In 2001 another application came along to demolish the upper floors of the Grand and “secure” the ground floor. It was refused on the grounds that the partial demolition would cause “visual blight on a prominent inner-city corner”.
In 2004 permission was granted for the demolition of numbers 112 and 113 for another six-storey apartment scheme. The demolition of the Grand went ahead; the rest of the development did not.
At number 114, planning permission was granted in 2000 for a four-storey building with pub and student accommodation above. It didn’t proceed and in 2005 another application for apartments only was refused.
In 2008 the three properties finally came together in one application from a new owner named Willowbridge; it was for a six-storey office and retail scheme, granted on appeal to An Bord Pleanála. It didn’t proceed and in 2010 another application was made for a six-storey student complex, with retail, but no pub, at ground level.
That’s the last application that made for this site. In 2015 it was acquired by student accommodation developer Ziggurat. At the time the area was being enthusiastically marketed by estate agents as “Sobo” (south of the Becket and O’Casey bridges) – a moniker which seems to have died quietly.
The site has been on and off the market since, most recently last year with a guide of €5.5 million. Agents JLL said it is recently “sale agreed”, subject to a grant of planning permission. - Olivia Kelly
6 College Street
A rare surviving relic of Dublin’s 19th century retail history, the old Yeast Company building at 6 College Street served the city’s bakers and brewers from 1894 until its closure in 2016. It was one of the oldest businesses in the city.
The four-storey brick building, which faces Trinity College Dublin, is more than 200 years old, dating from around 1820. It retains its historic shopfront with carved wooden detailing.
John Moreland, whose family acquired The Irish Yeast Company in the 1930s, worked and lived above the shop until his death in 2017. In 2018 the building was sold to a company owned by David Doyle, the brother of Declan Doyle who owns the neighbouring pubs Doyles and Bowes on Fleet Street.
David Doyle’s Capital Estate Management sought permission in 2018 to extend Bowes, one of Dublin’s last remaining intact Victorian pubs, into the Irish Yeast Company building’s ground floor, and to extend the Times Hostel into the upper storeys. This was refused by Dublin City Council in 2019.
In 2021 a new application was made to turn the old shop in to a cafe/bar and reception area, with three apartments above. This was rejected by the council, as was a similar application in 2022 on the grounds it would “irreversibly” damage the historic premises. However, in January of last year, An Bord Pleanála reversed this decision, granting permission.
Work on the development has yet to start and the council has raised concerns about the condition of the building, both internally and externally, and the risk to its historic fabric. Last September it added 6 College Street to the Derelict Sites Register.
It is understood that Mr Doyle is considering submitting a revised application for the building. - Olivia Kelly
47-49 Kildare Street
An unsuccessful 2019 planning application to demolish numbers 47 to 49 Kildare Street was described by heritage protection group An Taisce at the time as a “bad old days” application.
The proposed replacement of the Georgian terrace with a new office building, it said, recalled “the 1960s to ’80s office boom in Dublin when large chunks of historic streetscape on Kildare Street, Nassau Street, Molesworth Street, Dawson Street and St Stephen’s Green would routinely disappear” and be replaced by office developments.
The proposal for the five-storey, over-basement office building came from Ternary Ltd, a company ultimately owned by a trust associated with the Co Louth beef baron Larry Goodman and his family.
The family trust bought the Kildare Street buildings, which then housed the Earl of Kildare Hotel, in 2007.
In 2023 the council approved a renewed plan for an office scheme that would involve numbers 47 and 48 Kildare Street and 2 Nassau Street being retained, and the demolition of number 1 Nassau Street.
The site remains hoarded and there is little sign of redevelopment work. A request for a statement from representatives of the Goodman family met with no response.
There had been a hotel in the Kildare Street buildings for many years, with previous incarnations known as Powers Hotel and the Kildare Street Hotel.
The Goodman trust also owns the Setanta Centre which stretches from Nassau Street south to Setanta Place and is at the rear of the buildings on Kildare Street. Most of the centre, which was built in the 1970s, has been closed for some time, with permission granted in 2018 to demolish it and replace it with an eight-storey office development.
Some demolition work has already taken place. The Kilkenny Design shop and restaurant, which is in the Setanta Centre building, remains open. An extension to the planning permission was granted by Dublin City Council in July of last year. - Colm Keena
The City Arts Centre, 1 City Quay
The now decaying building at the junction of Moss Street and City Quay on Dublin’s south quays once hosted a thriving cultural space in the city centre when it was the City Arts Centre. However, the centre, which opened in the late 1980s, has lain vacant for more than two decades since it was sold in 2003 for €4.2 million.
It was sold to a consortium of developers including Paddy Kelly and the Dublin-based McCormack family’s investment vehicle Alanis Capital, after which the property remained unused until it was sold again in 2021 for more than the €35 million guide price.
This time, the property was purchased by Ventaway, a company headed up by David Kennan and Winthrop engineering group founder Barry English. Since then, multiple attempts have been made by Ventaway to develop the building and its 0.22 hectare (0.55 acre) site, including plans to transform it into what would have been Dublin city’s tallest structure, a proposed 24-storey, 108m tall building.
An Bord Pleanála upheld an October 2022 Dublin City Council refusal saying the scale, bulk and height of the development would “seriously detract from the setting and character of the Custom House and environs”. It added that the building, which would have primarily been office space, would “stand apart as an overly assertive solo building which would not form part of a coherent cluster”.
Last December Ventaway lodged new plans with Dublin City Council, this time for a 14-storey structure that would be 61m tall.
The scaled-down project has since attracted a number of objections, including from the Office of Public Works, which said the construction of a building at this scale had “the potential to adversely impact the historic and architectural character of the Custom House”. - Jack White
25 Aungier Street
Aungier Street has had a problem with derelict and vacant properties for decades.
The good news is one of the largest derelict sites, 22-24 Aungier Street, is being redeveloped by the UK-based, Irish-owned Marlin Group into 20 serviced apartments and a bar and restaurant which will bring the protected three-storey structures back into use.
The bad news is 25 Aungier Street next door remains derelict. The building dates back to 1740 and is also a protected structure. In 2009 there was a bridal design shop in the building, but it is long since gone.
Number 25 Aungier Street is owned by John Winston who was recently visited by Dublin City Council’s structural engineers.
“I am 15 years trying to get it done. As far as I’m concerned this should have been done 14 years ago,” he said.
In 2015 he applied for emergency structural steelwork around the building to be removed so he could develop it as a retail unit on the first floor with apartments upstairs, but the application was declared invalid by Dublin City Council on the basis that the information provided was insufficient.
Number 25 was put on the Derelict Sites Register in November 2023 with a valuation of €150,000, making its owner liable for 7 per cent of the value of the site or €10,500 annually in levies for each year it remains vacant.
Dublin City Council says its conservation section is engaging with Mr Winston about remediation works on the property, which he will have to carry out. It is also considering a compulsory purchase order for the site, but has no plans itself to bring it back into use. - Ronan McGreevy
73-74 Old Kilmainham
At one end of Brookfield Road is the most expensive and controversial construction project in the history of the State: the national children’s hospital.
At the other end, fronting on to Old Kilmainham, is Carrigan’s pub. The fading sign outside indicates it has been a pub since 1837 but it has been closed for many years.
The pub and the adjacent properties, one of which used to be a chipper, are in a dilapidated state, and the roofs of all three properties are exposed. A fire during Covid lockdown extensively damaged the site further.
There is a long trail of planning permissions associated with the site going back to 2007 when permission was granted for the demolition of the existing buildings to be replaced by a mixed retail and residential development, but it was not acted upon.
The site was put up for sale for €2.5 million in February 2020. In February 2021 the council refused planning permission to Pertan Construction Services Ltd to build a co-living development comprising 62 units with a cinema/games room and gym. The council believed it would constitute overdevelopment of the site.
Pertan appealed the decision to An Bord Pleanála and was successful a year later. Co-living developments were banned by the Government because it was feared they were becoming too prevalent, but that ban only extended to new developments and the Carrigan’s site retains its planning permission.
In September last year the site was listed on the council’s Derelict Site Register, but a valuation has yet to be agreed. The major shareholder is Richard Fenelon, who is based in the UK.
The original sale did not go through because of a disagreement among the owners, but it is about to be relaunched on to the market with planning permission for the co-living scheme.
Agent Robert Colleran says the children’s hospital should be completed by the end of the year with a staff of 2,000 on site and he is confident that the Old Kilmainham site will be attractive to developers.
“You’d hope that you would have a steady rental market there,” he said. - Ronan McGreevy
23-27 Thomas Street
Each year the Guinness Storehouse attracts 1.5 million visitors to Dublin’s Liberties. Those visitors who make the journey on foot from Dublin city centre will pass through row after row of vacant or derelict buildings along the way.
Buildings don’t come more derelict than the site at 23-27 Thomas Street, which is bordered by Arthur’s pub on one side and the Digital Hub on the other.
After years of delays and false starts, it finally looks like the whole area will be redeveloped and numbers 23 to 27 Thomas Street along with it. The Land Development Agency (LDA), established in 2018 to develop public lands for housing, has acquired a large chunk of land from the Digital Hub Development Agency on both sides of Thomas Street including numbers 23 to 27.
The Pear Tree Crossing is one of the most ambitious city centre developments which the LDA is proposing to develop, with 550 homes envisaged in an area that has long been problematic. The 3.7 hectare development consists of sites on either side of Thomas Street.
Numbers 23 to 27 Thomas Street will be part of the Vathouse 7 development, so-called after a vathouse on the site owned by the Guinness Brewery.
The centre of this development will be the use of the existing vathouse for commercial and cultural uses with housing being built around it.
The master plan envisages the facades of numbers 23, 26 and 27 being kept and developed as office space, with a new building in the gap at number 24. In December last year the LDA submitted an enabling planning application for site clearance works and enhanced hoarding for this part of Thomas Street.
Further down the street Guinness owner Diageo has successfully applied for planning permission to redevelop 12 acres of now disused brewery land for housing. - Ronan McGreevy
5 Walworth Street
Number 5 Walworth Street is next door to the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin’s Portobello. This street was the epicentre of a thriving Jewish community in Dublin and the museum was opened in 1985 by Irish-born Chaim Herzog, the first president of Israel. His son Isaac is the country’s current president.
[ The Belfast man who became president of IsraelOpens in new window ]
In 2011 the Irish Jewish Museum, which is based on the site of the old synagogue at numbers 3 to 4 Walworth Road, announced ambitious plans to demolish the existing two houses and three adjacent terraced houses and replace them with a two-storey museum.
In 2013 An Bord Pleanála gave planning permission for the development against the objection of locals who feared it would ruin the streetscape and attract large volumes of traffic.
Despite having successfully navigated the planning process, the development ran into immediate trouble. The museum could not fund its ambitious programme, permission to use two of the houses gifted to the museum was withdrawn and the planning lapsed after five years.
Number 5 Walworth Road was placed on the council’s Derelict Site register in June 2023 with a valuation of €400,000. As derelict sites go, it is not in a bad condition and the museum has painted on fake windows and doors to give the impression that it is being maintained.
The museum is showing its age. It is not big enough to house the Irish Jewish community’s extensive archive and artefacts. Its trustees have not given up on plans to redevelop it and plan to unveil a smaller development than what had been proposed before incorporating three not five houses.
“The original plan is dead in the water, but it is still our full-on intention to develop the museum,” said a museum spokesman.
“It does not have the necessary standards that a modern museum should have. Architectural plans are in progress.”
The plan will be to retain the existing facades as far as possible. - Ronan McGreevy
7 Lower Leeson Street
Houricans pub at the top of Lower Leeson Street, just off St Stephen’s Green, was once a favourite pub of UCD students when the campus was based in Earlsfort Terrace. In latter years it was a big attraction for after-work drinkers and revellers when Leeson Street was the epicentre of the city’s nightclub scene.
At the height of the boom in 2007 owners Patrick and Mary Hourican, successfully applied for planning permission to demolish the pub and a vacant building next door at number 6 to be replaced with an expanded pub and four floors of office space. Then came the economic crash and the plans went into abeyance.
Number 6 has been vacant since 1998 and was put on the Derelict Sites Register in 2019. The building’s registered owner is Coindale Limited, which is based in Citywest. The company’s director is listed as Peter Shubotham who works for the Stepstone Group, an asset management agency.
Houricans pub along with number 6 and number 5 have now gone on the market at a price of €1.25 million through the estate agents Lisney. An architectural plan that would turn the site into a residential development with four two-bedroom apartments and three one-bedroom apartments came to nothing when the council changed its zoning from residential to Z6, a zoning that aims to create employment and protect enterprise under the Dublin City Development 2022-2028.
It will now be suitable for a hotel or a mixed retail/office development, according to Lisney estate agent Shane O’Connor who is handling the sale. - Ronan McGreevy
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