ESS Project

Georgian Dublin

by

Stephen Webster

Class 2A

2002

Aims

  1. To learn about Dublin in Georgian Times

  2. To learn about Georgian architecture

    3. [ houses and public buildings ]

  3. To learn how people lived [ rich or poor]

    4. In Georgian Times

  4. To understand our Ansesters and the part they played in our city`s heritage

The Georgian town

By 1700 peace was restored in Ireland, and the country was firmly in the of law and order. For the first time ever, townspeople no longer had to fear attack from the hills around tere towns. They could build houses outside the walls, and plan new wide street streching into the suburbs. There was a new feeling for town planning and famous architects came to design gracious new buildings for the ruling class. It was fashionable to see ancient Greece and Rome as the roots of civilisation, and many of the new buildings were designed to echo the splendours of these old cities. The new streets were broad and the houses were built of stone brick. Building grew in importance as an industry. In Waterford the exchange, the customs house and the courthose were built; in belfast there was a linen hall, and in Limerick the assembly rooms and the Georgian area of Newtown pery.

 

GEORGIAN BUILDINGS

Most of the great public buildings of Dublin were built in the 18th century. Very Irishmen designed few of these. Two of the largest, the Custom House and the Four Courts, were designed by an English man James Gandon

THE CUSTOM HOUSE:

James Gandon designed this in 1781. It took ten years to complete and cost nearly £300.000 it was built of granite and Portland stone. The principal rivers of Ireland can be seen as symbols on the front of the building.

 

The Custom House is often considered architecturally the most important building in Dublin and is sited on the river front with Beresford Place to the rear. The Custom House was the first major public building built in Dublin as an isolated structure with four monumental facades. The previous Custom House by Thomas Burgh and built in 1707 was sited up river at Essex Quay and was judged as unsafe just seventy years later. The site chosen for the new Custom House met with much opposition from city merchants who feared that its move down river would lessen the value of their properties while making the property owners to the east wealthier. The decision to built further down river was forced by the Rt. Hon. John Beresford (1738-1805) who was appointed Chief Commissioner from 1780 onwards and was instrumental in bringing James Gandon to Ireland. He favoured shifting the city centre eastwards from the Capel - Parliament Street axis towards a new axis on College Green with Drogheda Street and the construction of a new bridge linking the two sides. The building was built on slob land reclaimed from the estuary of the Liffey when the Wide Streets Commissioners constructed the Quays. The line of the crescent Beresford Place that surrounds the Custom House follows roughly the line of the old North Strand along the estuary before the construction of the Quays.

Started in 1781, the new Custom House was finished ten years later at a cost of over £200,000. The finished external design consisted of four facades each different but consistent and linked by corner pavilions. The exterior of the building is richly adorned with sculptures and coats-of-arms by Thomas Banks, Agnostino Carlini and Edward Smyth who carved a series of sculpted keystones symbolising the rivers of Ireland.

In the Irish Civil War of 1921-1922 the interior of the CustomHouse was destroyed when the building was completely engulfed by fire lit by the IRA. The fire blazed for five days, destroying a huge quantity of public records. The heat was so intense that the dome melted and the stonework was still cracking because of cooling five months later and Gandon's interior was completely destroyed. The building underwent serious reconstruction and the dome and drum were completely rebuilt in Ardbraccan limestone as opposed to the original Portland stone. The limestone is a much darker colour and this can be seen in the illustrations. The building was further restored by the Office of Public Works in the 1980s after it was discovered that the large cornice was in danger of collapsing from the damage caused by the fire and the rusting of the ironwork braces holding the stonework together. The fine sculptures and coats-of-arms that adorn the building were restored and a new Portland Stone cornice fitted to replace the sub standard one fitted after the fire.

THE FOUR COURTS:

James Gandon also designed the Four Courts on the banks of the River Liffey. This also took ten

years to build, at the cost of £200,000. One of the landmarks of Dublin with its large drum and shallow dome, and visible all along the Liffey, the Four Courts derives its names from the four divisions that traditionally were the judicial system in Ireland. These were: Chancery, King's Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas.

 

The first important Irish architect was Thomas Burgh of Naas, Co. Kildare. He designed and built Collins Barracks between 1701 and 1704. He also designed the Library in Trinity College. Which was completed in 1732

 

 

 

 

NO.29 LOWER FITZWILLIAM STREET

 

The house was the home of Mrs Olivia Beatty and her husband David (who was a wine merchant) they had 3 children. The house was built in 1794 Mrs Beatty bought it for £320. The house was bought by the E.S.B. There was a major row as they demolished several Georgian houses to build new offices. To make up for this the E.S.B. paid for the restoration of No.29, which has been redone as an exhibition to let todays Dubliners see what life was like in the Georgian era. The following are the key features of the house to look out for on seeing it

1 Cellar

2 First floor

3 Second floor

4 Third floor

Fitzwilliam Street once the longest expanse of intact Georgian architecture anywhere in the world was destroyed in the 1970s when the ESB a supposedly responsible semi-state body wantonly demolished twelve of the houses. The Georgian vista that existed till then consisted of almost a mile of continuous houses passing through two squares