Dublin City Councilors have adopted a report which calls for the preservation of the site at Moore Street where the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising made their final surrender, according to the Journal.
Members last night approved a report tabled by a cross-party committee which recommended that four houses at numbers 14 to 17 Moore Street be saved from demolition or redevelopment, as well as preserving nearby lanes used by the rebels as they fled the GPO.
The report recommends that Arts minister Jimmy Deenihan refuse to allow proposals which would see the demolition of the rear of the buildings to make way for a commercial complex.
The area is a designated national monument, meaning the minister has the ability to veto any redevelopment projects.
A development proposed for the north end of O’Connell Street would have seen many of the Moore Street structures demolished to make way for a “retail-led mixed development”.
The report – which stops short of recommending the preservation of the entire terrace – will now be passed on to the minister.
Deenihan said last May he wanted to make a decision on the site ‘as soon as possible’, but a decision had been deferred until the input of the council was sought.
Sinn Féin had been hoping to ensure the preservation of the site – and its potential development into a memorial or commemoration of the 1916 leaders – in time for the centenary of the Easter Rising in three years’ time.
It remains unclear, however, whether the current 16 Moore Street – which is currently a derelict retail unit – is actually the building from which the leaders surrendered. The street was renumbered in the 1930s and it has been suggested that the final post of the rebels was actually the unit which is now number 18. Journal.ie
