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The Iveagh Market in Dublin’s southern city center was reclaimed by Lord Iveagh on Tuesday, Dublin City Council said.
Representatives for Lord Iveagh, a member of the Guinness family, notified the council that he had invoked the “reversion” clause contained in the original July 1906 Transfer Deed.
“The city council was informed that since the Iveagh Market Building has been out of use as a market for a considerable number of years, Lord Iveagh, in accordance with the terms contained in the deed of assignment, has repossessed the property this morning and has notified the council accordingly, ”said a council spokesperson.
“The council is considering the matter with its legal advisers.”
The market, which was built in the early 20th century by the Guinness family, has been abandoned for more than 20 years and has been the subject of a legal battle between the city council and businessman and hotelier Martin Keane.
Food hall
A request from Mr. Keane to remodel the site at Liberties was declared invalid by the council last January. He applied to convert the Edwardian building on Francis Street into a European-style dining room, restaurants, a distillery, a brewery, and craft workshops in December 2019.
In a report to councilors in January, the council’s chief planning officer, Richard Shakespeare, said the council was not satisfied that Keane had “secured adequate funding” for the project and that his application had been submitted “without consent. council as owner “.
Mr. Keane “claims to have a full ownership interest, which is false in relation to the Iveagh Markets element of the application,” Shakespeare said.
The council had informed Mr. Keane that it is “terminating all communication with him and that it is taking the necessary steps to regain ownership of him.”
The council “will defend this action in court if necessary,” Shakespeare said.
Displaced merchants
The market was built to house street traders who had been displaced by the construction of the nearby Iveagh Trust housing development on Patrick Street, and was given in trust to the Dublin Corporation.
In the 1980s, the building was in bad shape and finally closed in the 1990s. In 1996, the council announced that it was looking for a private developer to regenerate the market. The following year, Mr. Keane won the tender, with an agreement that title to the market would be transferred to him once the remodel was completed.
However, the development was mired in an ownership dispute between the corporation and the Iveagh Trust, controlled by the Guinness family.
The dispute was not resolved until 2004. Mr. Keane applied for the building permit, which was granted by An Bord Pleanála in 2007, but before he could act, the recession struck.
In 2012, he obtained a five-year extension of the planning permit, which expired in 2017. That year, the council voted to regain control of the market from Keane.
The council subsequently commissioned a report on the condition of the building from conservation architects Howley Hayes, which concluded that “essential structural repairs” alone would cost 13 million euros.
Last year, Shakespeare told council members that the council did not have the money and that the “most efficient way” to move forward for the market would be for Keane to rebuild it.
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