Many visitors to City Hall don’t get to see much right now

It isn’t always easy to get a decent glimpse inside City Hall. 

The weekend before last, the rotunda had been cordoned off with an extendable barrier.

A few tourists wandered across the reception area, craning at the stained-glass dome ceiling, inspired by Rome’s Pantheon, and just beyond a series of stanchions linked together by nylon belts.

Below the ceiling, the mosaics decorating the walls were in shadow. The retractable barriers also limited visitors' ability to see the statues between the towering columns.

They could look at Daniel O’Connell’s back, and they could get a full view of the poet and Young Ireland organiser Thomas Davis over on the opposite side of the room.

But it wouldn’t be possible to walk into the rotunda, said the man working at the security desk.

Nor was it possible on Monday afternoon, just after 4pm. Once again, the indoor fence was up as a family of three quietly walked through the front doors. 

“You can only be in here,” the security guard said. This time, the rotunda was given over to rows of empty chairs, which, it appeared, had been used for a wedding earlier.

But by luck, 24 hours later, on Tuesday afternoon, the barrier was down as Green Party Councillor Feljin Jose climbed up the steps looking out across Dame Street and the traffic-free Parliament Street.

More people should be able to come in here, Jose said, as he strolled across the marble floors. “Some of my friends ask where our offices are. I say City Hall and they say ‘Where’s that?’ It’s a real shame. A crying shame.”

Thousands do come in each year, Jose says. But mostly, they are coming for weddings or corporate events, he says, walking past a pair of banners advertising that the hall can be booked for these functions. “That’s not fair on the average person.”

Councillors are currently being surveyed by the council about how it should be used, he says. “The feeling is we want people to be able to go there, and experience the history of it.”

The hall is open from Monday to Saturdays for members of the general public, a spokesperson said on Tuesday. But often weddings and events can impact this.

The council is, however, looking to bring back a few features that once made City Hall a more engaging public space, like the exhibition room and cafe in its basement, which were closed five years ago, the council spokesperson said.

No shortage of events

On any given day, Barnardo Square outside City Hall on Dame Street has at least one tour guide either explaining a bit about the local history, or waiting to bring a crowd around Dublin Castle.

As Greens councillor Jose stood on the edge of the square, by Exchange Court, the journalist and LGBTQ+ activist Tonie Walsh was in the middle of a guided tour with a crowd of some 15 people gathered around him.

There are plenty of walking tours in the area. But hardly any go into City Hall, says Adam Ladd, a local walking history guide.

“I can’t recall a day in the last two years that I’ve been able to access that,” Ladd says. “Ideally, there would be regular tours of it, not just for tourists, but for locals.”

There actually are tours available, the council spokesperson said Tuesday. The council takes bookings for short tours in the rotunda subject to availability of the space, they said.

But whereas there is no shortage of information in both the hall itself, and on the council website about booking the venue for a private function, information on how to book a tour is scarce.

Pre-covid, it was possible to bring in small crowds, Ladd says. “If it was a couple or a family, I’d bring them down. You have the statues and the artwork in the rotunda which gives the plot of the history of Ireland.”

But these days, while in theory the rotunda floor is open a lot of the working week, weddings and other events take precedence over visitors.

In the absence of a wedding on Tuesday, there were about eight visitors wandering through the rotunda, getting a proper view of the interior’s elaborate decorations, like the mosaics on its wall depicting different chapters in the city’s story.

There was the legend of St Patrick baptising the King of Dublin, and the Viking invasion circa 841 AD. “That one’s about Strongbow,” Jose said, pointing to the picture of the Archbishop Laurence O’Toole asking Richard de Clare not to enter the city in 1170 AD.

“The average person really hasn’t had a chance to come in here and see basically the centre of local democracy,” he says.

Post-Covid recovery

Jose descended the staircase to enter City Hall’s raised basement.

He walked through an archway announcing “the story of the capital” within the vaults beneath the rotunda.

He pointed to the limestone floor. There was a semi-circle-sized piece of the ground, which was paler than its surroundings. That was where the cafe used to be, he said.

The “mushroom” room in the basement, which was named on account of the distinct pillar in its centre, used to host a display about the history of Dublin, says Social Democrats Councillor Cat O’Driscoll. 

“It was launched around the millennium, and during Covid it was taken down,” she said. “It had run its course.” 

The exhibition and cafe were closed due to a restructuring of the space, a council spokesperson said. “There were requirements for additional spaces for councillors to use.”

Two political party rooms were added, as was a small conference space and two small meeting rooms, they said.

Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats needed political party rooms, O’Driscoll says. “But the mushroom room is now being not renovated, but renewed so that we can have displays in there.”

Around the room on Tuesday were the remnants of a recent temporary photography exhibition, “Memories Made in Dublin City”, which ran from 24 May to 2 June.

“It was very popular,” says O’Driscoll. “I know because I was passing through it on a regular basis on the way to my party’s room.”

But the room feels like it is missing a lot at the moment.

In between these photographs, and all around the room are empty display cases, shaped like lancet windows, some of which contained digital devices that measured the room temperature.

The council is looking to get these display cases maintained, so more items can be put on display there, she says. “We’re in the middle of the phase of getting things right.”

A spokesperson for the council confirmed on Tuesday too that the re-opening of the basement café is currently under consideration.

The council also hopes to expand the current tour it offers to the basement, once the exhibition space opens again too, they said.