The announcement by a number of banking groups that they intend to dispose of building stock in Dublin ought to bring to public attention the architectural significance of these structures. While those in the capital are particularly splendid, throughout the country, old banks in every town of any significance will be among the most substantial and best sited buildings. The majority of these properties will date from the second half of the 19th century, the post-famine period when Ireland experienced enormous social and economic change.
As tenant farmers became increasingly - if still modestly - affluent and a nationwide urban middle-class emerged, their need for financial services grew. This is why so many banks were established during the decades after 1850, the majority of them subsequently assimilated into larger corporate groups during the 20th century, and why the buildings they constructed remain, along with Roman Catholic churches of the same time, possibly the most tangible evidence of national revitalisation after the decimation caused by the Famine. The design and decoration of these buildings was specifically intended to demonstrate Ireland's new-found self-confidence.
Almost no banks built prior to this period still survive. By far the most significant is the Adamesque neo-classical Newcomen's Bank on Castle Street, Dublin, which was designed by Thomas Ivory and dates from 1781. After serving its original purpose for a century, albeit undergoing some modifications in the 1850s, the building was sold to Dublin Corporation and became the local authority's rates office. Six years ago, the bank was thoroughly refurbished and much of its interior still shows evidence of Ivory's original design.
Across the road from the Newcomen premises on Castle Street stood an even earlier bank, that established by David La Touche at some date before 1735; sadly, this was dismantled in 1945, an elaborate stucco-work ceiling being saved and reerected in the Directors' diningroom of the Bank of Ireland 2, College Green. This is without question Ireland's grandest and most beautiful bank building, having originally been constructed as the Houses of Parliament and adapted for its present purposes after the Act of Union.
In the immediate vicinity of the Bank of Ireland are a number of other banks, since this part of the city effectively became Dublin's financial district in the middle of the 19th century. So, directly opposite the west side of the Bank of Ireland on Foster Place is a branch of AIB, the interior of which must be among the grandest and least-known in the capital. At the end of the 18th century, Sir Thomas Lighton's bank and accounts office was located here; this later merged with Shaw's Bank and later became the Royal Bank. The last of these was responsible for altering the property, the 12-bay exterior of which has at its centre a very substantial neo-classical limestone portico dating from circa 1850.
The relative restraint of the frontage is in marked contrast to what lies inside, designed by Charles Geoghegan in 1859: he removed the first floor to create a top-lit double-height banking hall of dazzling proportions. The main section of the ceiling is a glazed and coffered barrel vault supported by quarter-circle side vaulting, the whole supported by lines of slender cast-iron Corinthian columns. No other bank in the College Green area is as grandiose as this, although the National Irish Bank nearby certainly has a more splendid facade. As first designed for the Union Bank in the 1860s by William Murray (assisted by Thomas Drew), this had only four bays on College Green and two on Church Lane.
Not unusually for the period, the original bank failed and the site was taken over by the Hibernian Bank which in 1873 employed Drew on his own to expand the building in both directions to its present size. An intensely idiosyncratic work, the premises are predominantly Italian Gothic in inspiration, although 15th century French chateau architecture seems to have provided the ideas for the roofline. The interior, however, is more consistent and typical of the preferred style of the time, taking the form of a richly decorated vaulted hall.
For a more imaginative response to the principal space in a bank, the nearby Bank of Ireland (originally National Bank) is worth examining. Following his work on the Royal Bank in Foster Place, Charles Geoghegan was given the commission of creating a new interior for this premises in 1863. His design bears similarities with the banking and exchange halls then being built in cities across Europe, being based around a very large glazed dome surrounded by delicate cast-iron columns. Although the present fit-out of the interior does little to enhance the beauty of Geoghegan's conception, it is nonetheless superior to the immediately adjacent site, owned by Ulster Bank. Designed for the company by Sir Thomas Drew in 1891, the exterior is somewhat overwhelming in its self-aggrandising pomposity, but infinitely superior to the ugly and functional interior; inexcusably, Drew's original vaulted hall was ripped out by the Ulster Bank in 1976, seemingly to facilitate staff working conditions. It compounded its error by purchasing all buildings up to Church Lane and then demolishing them to construct a new block which, in architectural historian Peter Pearson's words, "is of extraordinary banality".
That not all 20th century redevelopments of bank buildings were to the disadvantage of the original design is proven by the extension of an AIB premises on Dame Street. Located opposite the Olympia Theatre, this was designed by Thomas Deane in 1872 for the Munster and Leinster Bank and bears similarities to the same architect's Museum Building in Trinity College, having the character of a Romanesque Lombardic palazzo, the exterior decorated with coloured marble inserts. When the bank needed more space in 1956, architects McDonnell and Dixon lengthened the facade in the same style, so that it is now practically impossible to detect their work from that of Deane.
It is a pity, however, that the majority of more recent work on banks both new and old fails to show similar flair and sense of invention. Nothing better demonstrates the change in approach to bank design than last year's relocation of a Dublin branch of AIB from College Street around the corner to Westmoreland Street. The old site included a superb banking hall, its ceiling coffered and glazed, originally designed for the Provincial Bank in 1863. The new premises could be described as being at best functional, but demonstrates none of the vigour and imagination evident in College Street. The era of great banking design has clearly drawn to a close.
