Heritage groups urge State to buy last great Georgian mansion built in Dublin

Heritage organisations are urging the State to save one of Dublin’s most significant Georgian mansions following the expiration of planning permission for its redevelopment as offices.

Aldborough House on Portland Row in the northeast inner city is the largest Georgian residence in the city after Leinster House and was the last Georgian mansion built in Dublin. The house, completed in 1803, has been vacant for more than 20 years and has suffered extensive damage to its roof and windows and serious internal deterioration from water ingress and vandalism.

Five years go Reliance Investments Ltd, a company associated with machinery hire firm Pat O’Donnell and Company, was granted permission to develop the house for offices and construct two new five-storey “office wings” in its grounds, despite criticism of the scheme by the Department of Heritage and conservation organisations.

However, the project did not go ahead, and while in the last two years external restoration works, part funded by the Government’s Historic Structures Fund, were undertaken to prevent further deterioration of the building, permission for the office development has now lapsed and no extension of permission has been sought within the required time.

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The expiration of the planning permission for the office development presents an opportunity for the State to acquire the building and restore it to an appropriate use, heritage organisations have said.

“It is the ideal opportunity for Aldborough House finally to come back into public ownership and the right thing to be done by it,” Graham Hickey, chief executive of the Dublin Civic Trust, said.

“We still have that gaping void in not having a civic museum for Dublin. Museums are no longer just static spaces, they’re meeting points and social spaces as much as they are education and cultural, and there is room for this building to become a pioneering gallery, come community, come museum facility.”

The office proposal had “compromised the architectural integrity of the building,” Mr Hickey said.

“One of the very poor aspects of the redevelopment proposal was the demolition of the surviving 18th-century theatre, which has the capacity for holding exhibitions or potentially going back to its original purpose as a theatre.”

Aldborough House could be a focal point for the much-needed regeneration of the northeast inner city, the “most marginalised square kilometre in the State”, he said.

“When you turn the corner from Aldborough House you have an extraordinary marching avenue going straight as an arrow, all the way down to O’Connell Street and if you were to take a pair of binoculars it’s terminated by number 42 Upper O’Connell Street, designed by leading architect Richard Castle circa 1752.

“With the State investment in former Magdalene laundry site on Seán McDermott Street, there could be a great connection there in bringing a whole new public interest in that quarter of the city, drawing people from O’Connell Street and giving real meaning to the regeneration of that area it desperately needs.”

[ Buildings at risk: Aldborough House, Dublin ]

[ Permission granted for Aldborough House redevelopment ]

Irish Georgian Society executive director Donough Cahill said the acquisition of the house could help reverse Dublin’s removal from the Unesco tentative list of world heritage sites. “The future of Aldborough House has been a huge cause of concern for over 20 years with a number of drives to restore and reuse the building each in turn falling by the wayside,” he said. “The continued vacancy of Aldborough House and the imminent lapsing of planning permission once again raises fundamental questions about its future. Surely the time has come for the Government or Dublin City Council to look to acquire the house.”

Kevin Duff of An Taisce said it seemed unlikely a new office proposal would be made for the site. “An Taisce would like to see a new plan for a suitable institutional use for Aldborough House. Any ancillary new-build development on the site should be subordinate in scale to the original 18th-century building.”

The Dublin City Development Plan, enacted since the permission was granted, says any future proposal for Aldborough House “must recognise the historic merits of the site and carefully consider the setting and conservation of the building and associated structures”.

The council said it has not had any contact with the owner in recent years in relation to the acquisition of the building.

A spokeswoman for Pat O’Donnell and Company said it had no comment to make on the matter.

Aldborough House was in State ownership throughout the 20th century until it was sold in 1999 to the Irish Music Rights Organisation (Imro) for use as its headquarters. This plan fell through in 2005 and Imro sold the house to a company called Aldborough Developments, which got planning permission to convert it to a private hospital, but was subsequently wound up.