It has commissioned a study to weigh up the future of the Mercy Convent gate lodge, the Goldenbridge Integrated Services Complex, and the old library.
The air around the western side of St Michael’s Estate in Inchicore smelled faintly of burnt paper on Monday afternoon.
The red brick wall of the old gate lodge at the entrance to Emmet Crescent was charred. The footpath below was covered in a thin layer of ash.
Weeds grew from two chimneys that rose high above the roof at either end of the two-storey lodge, and shot out from over the back garden wall.
The lodge’s ground-floor windows and front entrance are sealed with rusted metal sheets.
A council-owned property, the gate lodge was built circa 1880, according to the National Built Heritage Service.
Its eaves are its most striking feature. They are white and coved, lending the building the impression that the first floor is larger than the ground.
It has been empty for years. In 2008, Dublin City Council applied for planning permission to turn it into a community facility – but that didn’t happen.
Now, the council is again looking at what it could be used for, according to a report to the South Central Area Committee on Wednesday 17 April.
The council has commissioned a feasibility study, which will also look at two other key buildings in the area – and come up with a kind of community assets plan, it says.
Just 50 metres north-west of the Goldenbridge Cemetery, which has its own gate lodge, the Emmet Crescent lodge features a pair of stone cross motifs by its Victorian entrance.
It was formerly the gate lodge to the Sisters of Mercy Convent complex in Goldenbridge, which included the St Vincent’s Industrial School.
As part of a 2002 deal between the state and 18 religious congregations, the congregations paid €128 million in cash and property in return for indemnity against lawsuits by people who they’d interned in institutions as children.
Under the indemnity agreement, the Sisters of Mercy transferred the gate lodge to the state, according to an Irish Times article.
In April 2008, the council’s City Architects division applied for planning permission to renovate it and for a change of use, from residential to a community facility.
They wanted to build an extension at the back, intending the property to accommodate St Michael’s After School Project, their planning application says.
That July, council planners said that was allowed under its current zoning, and it could go ahead as proposed.
But that never happened. The City Architects’ notice is still fixed to the wall just by the front door, now almost illegible.
Zoe Obeimhen, an independent candidate in the local elections, says it had been promised in the past to the local family resource centre.
St Michael’s Family Resource Centre is currently nearby in Tyrone Place, she says. “They are spread out across some flats on the bottom floor, and people could be living in those.”
St Michael’s Family Resource Centre did not respond when asked if they are still looking to use the lodge.
The Emmet Crescent lodge is out of the scope of the recent planning application put in by the council for its flagship Emmet Road project of 578 homes, a new library, creche, retail services, public realm and landscape works on the big empty fields over the road to the east of the lodge.
But the focus of that project was always on housing, says Green Party Councillor Michael Pidgeon. “And it was probably never going to be used for that.”
Said Pidgeon: “Really, I would want to see it being given over to a social or community purpose.”
The council has done some works in recent times. A contractor cleared out the courtyard, and did asbestos and lead-paint surveys, said a report to the South Central Area Committee on 15 March 2023.
A council quantity surveyor and engineer were due to meet that month, with a view to developing a programme for site investigation and enabling works, and a gate lodge refurbishment project then set to go out for tender.
Inchicore is filled with community organisations and social services that are in need of buildings, says Green Party TD Patrick Costello. “This building, and Inchicore Library, something needs to be done with that.”
The 1937 art deco library, which was closed by the council in March 2020, has fallen into serious disrepair in the last five years, with a collapsed ceiling, mould, dampness and cracked walls.
On 17 April, a report to the South Central Area Committee said that the council has commissioned a feasibility study, which will weigh up not just the future of the lodge, but also the library, and Goldenbridge Integrated Service Complex community centre in Emmet Crescent.
Lorne Consulting will do the initial study, the report said, which will lead to a “master vision” for how to use the three public assets based on an assessment of local community needs.
The council should commit to its stated intentions back in 2017 to give it to the family resource centre, Obeimhen says. “They’ve been using those flats when they should have their own dedicated building.”
Dublin City Council didn’t respond to a query as to whether it still intends to turn the lodge into a family resource centre.
It has huge potential, Costello says. “It could be a creche, a health centre, or an after school? The school behind it still operates prefabs. It could be an extension.”
CORRECTION: This article was updated on 19 September 2024 to reflect that the old Inchicore library was closed in March 2020, due to Covid-related restrictions, and not in late 2019 as we had originally written. Apologies for the error.
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