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Environment Minister Eamon Ryan has defended ESB’s proposal to convert the former Georgian House Museum on the corner of Merrion Square in Dublin into luxury apartments.
The house at 29 Fitzwilliam Street is one of 11 Georgian buildings planned for conversion, eight for residential use, in the company’s proposed remodel of its Mount Street headquarters.
The Irish Georgian Society has opposed the decision to convert the old museum, saying it would be a “sad and significant loss” to the city’s 18th century heritage. People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith described the plan as cultural “vandalism.”
However, Ryan said that returning the eight houses to residential use “has the potential to become an exemplary scheme for Dublin to demonstrate successful urban living.”
The building was restored by ESB in 1988 as part of an agreement with the then Dublin Corporation, agreed a decade earlier, to allow the company to exceed standard parcel ratios in the expansion of its office complex, built in the decade of 1960 when 16 Georgian houses were demolished.
Old headquarters
The museum was temporarily closed in 2017 to facilitate the demolition of the old headquarters and the construction of a new office.
The new building is almost finished, but the ESB said it has no intention of reopening the museum. Instead, he has petitioned Dublin City Council to convert the building into three apartments, to be sold individually.
The company will continue to occupy three homes, and the remaining eight will return to residential use with a total of 17 units.
Ms. Smith accused the company of following the adage “never waste a good crisis” and suggested that the ESB might not have moved so quickly to do what it is doing “if we hadn’t been in the middle of a lockdown and restrictions on Covid ”.
“Given that it is the only publicly accessible Georgian period house in the city of Dublin and that we advertise Dublin as a Georgian architectural city for tourism purposes, this act of vandalism intended by the ESB must be reversed.”
Appealed to the Minister
Raising the issue in the Dáil, he appealed to the minister to pressure the ESB to take over the museum. Ms Smith said that if the ESB went ahead with its plan “there is not one more property where we can enjoy that historic setting.”
But the Minister said it was a potential example for successful urban life, and that the ESB believed that returning buildings to residential use is the most sustainable means of safeguarding the urban landscape.
“A cohesive development of this type and scale offers a unique opportunity within the Georgian core,” he said. “It addresses the anxiety of neighbors, modern standards of hygiene and convenience, as well as legacy issues of construction, which were identified as key impediments to attracting owner-occupants to Georgian homes for the Living City initiative.”
He added that “if ESB manages to show an example of how we can get people back to live within the Georgian quarter, then I think it would be a real benefit for our city.”
The ESB said in a statement that “the 29th house was opened to the public in 1991 to support Dublin’s status as European Capital of Culture for that year.
“He never imagined that the exhibition would last forever.”
There was a change in landscape from 1991 for “historical / heritage offerings with many museum / heritage alternatives now available.”
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