Historic buildings are not just expensive to maintain. The challenge for any renovation is how the needs of modern life can be accommodated without destroying the structure’s original integrity.
Such was the task facing those who took on the ambitious project of renovating number 11 Parnell Square East, a formidable Georgian building dating from 1758.
The building has been vacant for the last two years. Its three tenants – Poetry Ireland, the Irish Heritage Trust, and the Irish Landmark Trust – moved out while the building was renovated, at a cost of €5.5 million. They are now back in, and the public are once again able to attend events there.
Architect Valerie Mulvin of McCullough Mulvin architects, who worked on the project, says the focus of the renovation was on allowing the building to be used for 21st century life, while restoring and respecting its heritage.
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“To maintain not just the 18th century, and the Victorian interventions that were made along the way, while also future-proofing everything.”
We are standing in the beautiful entrance hall, where a Victorian-era mosaic floor and Victorian stained glass exist alongside the original Portland stone cantilevered staircase. The staircase’s original iron balustrades still endure, as does the sinuous wooden banister that generations of hands have rubbed smooth over time as they went from floor to floor. There’s a grey carpet on the Portland stone stair treads.
“Some of the stairs need repairing,” explains Mulvin. “So the carpet is there until we get the money some day to do the repairs.”
Many of the crucial renovation elements will be invisible to the general public: work done on the roof, various new systems that aid with heating, lighting and energy. One significant, and visible, change is the addition of lifts by which people with mobility difficulties can access the building. There is a platform lift at street level, and a new lift in the building itself. The new lift shaft extension was built in a bow shape, to complement the existing exterior.
“Old buildings have to have new life,” Mulvin says.
“The building will now be able to be open for Open House and Culture Night,” points out Anne O’Donoghue, chief executive of the Irish Heritage Trust. This is a welcome development to what will be a prominent part of the cultural life of Parnell Square, which will also include the neighbouring Hugh Lane Gallery. The gallery is closed for renovation and is not expected to open until at least 2028.
The building has a revamped space to the rear which will be used as a workshop and education room. It opens to a new, small urban garden which can be used by all three organisations in the building.
“Here we envisage creative workshops of all kinds, and for all ages, taking place,” says Claire Power, director of Poetry Ireland. “We’re interested in parent, grandparent and baby/toddler activities, programmes for Pathways [an organisation for former prisoners], adult education, Irish language initiatives and community development initiatives.”
There are nine full- and part-time staff at Poetry Ireland, 20 at Irish Heritage Trust and six at the Irish Landmark Trust. All staff occupy bright offices, many of them with heritage fireplaces and enviable views of Georgian Dublin and the Dublin Mountains beyond.
Staff at the Irish Heritage Trust call their office space “the Oval Office”, as it is oval in shape. It also has a beautiful stucco ceiling, which is a bit of an architectural mystery to Mulvin, being as it is on the uppermost floor. “These kinds of ceilings were usually lower down, in more public spaces. This room was probably a bedroom,” she says.
Also in the building are two formal rooms with extensive wood panelling – the Council Chamber and the Secretary’s Room – where council meetings took place in the past. The Council Chamber seats 18 and is available to rent as a meeting space by members of the public.
Poetry Ireland, which marks its 50th anniversary in 2028, is the most public-facing tenant of number 11. Its ground floor space can hold 80 for events such as readings, launches and talks when the interior doors are opened out.
One floor up, at the rear of the building, the new Seamus Heaney Library is being developed. The late poet’s personal collection of books was given to Poetry Ireland by his family, and is now in the process of being catalogued. There are 3,900 books in the collection.
“In addition to the Heaney collection, the library will also eventually house additional collections such as the Austin Clarke Poetry Collection, an American Poetry Library, the John Jordan Collection, a children’s poetry collection and a contemporary poetry library amassed over the past 50 years by Poetry Ireland,” Power says.
The library, which has desks for eight readers, won’t be open to the public until some time this autumn. The collection’s catalogue will be made available online. For those who visit in person, appointments must be made in advance.
