Horse Show House bar near RDS may close for office use

ONE of Dublin's best known bars, The Horse Show House, opposite the RDS at Merrion Road in Ballsbridge, is to close if the planners allow it to be replaced by a four- and five-storey office building over a basement car park.

The latest planning application from the Madigan Group does not include provision for a replacement bar. It does, however, provide for the retention of the adjoining two-storey house which is a listed building and is used as offices. The new office building will have 30,000 sq ft of space. An earlier planning permission for an office development and a new bar was successfully appealed to An Bord Pleanala by the Irish Georgian Society.