Vacancy Watch: the old Merrion train station

The old Merrion train station sits at the midpoint between the Dart stops for Sydney Parade and Booterstown.

It is just south of the Merrion Gates level crossing where Sandymout Strand turns out onto the busy Merrion Road.

The quaint building is single-storey, red-brick, and connected to the long stone wall that separates the road from the train tracks.

Steps at the southern end of the slim building lead to its front entrance, which is covered by a rusting metal barrier, while a dense tangle of ivy and thorns has crawled across its rear facade.

Three windows face onto the street. Two are boarded up, and a third is blocked with bricks.

On a Sunday evening, pigeons lurked around its roof. One nestled above the brick window, under a pointed white wooden gable, its paintwork peeling and cracked like a lizard’s skin.

This abandoned station house is owned by Dublin City Council, says Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey, who wants to see it put back into use. “A local had contacted me back in December saying it’s falling apart.”

At the moment, the council is weighing up its future use, with the culture and recreation department looking for funding to refurbish it as an artist’s studio, a council official has said.

The old Merrion station house is the latest of Dublin City Council’s planned studio spaces.

On 26 February, Ray Yeates, the city arts officer, told councillors on the arts committee that the renovation of 8 and 9 Merchant’s Quay as 20 artist studios is due to begin late this year.

The design team for the two council-owned properties on Merchant’s Quay will also get involved in refurbishments of the former Eden restaurant in Temple Bar’s Meeting House Square, and temporary artists’ studios on Bridgefoot Street.

Open and shut

The old Merrion station was opened in 1835 by the Dublin and Kingstown Railway, after the line to Kingstown, now Dún Laoghaire, was built, according to Our Irish Heritage, an online database run by the National Museum of Ireland.

Over the next century, it fell in and out of use.

The Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford Railway closed it between 1862 and 1882, says James Scannell, the honorary president of the Old Dublin Society.

In 1882, the station house was built, according to the EireTrains site.

Once again, from 1901 until 1928, it was closed, and re-opened by the Great Southern Railway, Scannall says, before it was put out of service for the last time in 1935.

In 1973, a community organisation named Shelter Referral took over the house, Lacey says. “They provided a shelter for people either homeless or with addiction problems, and they made an income by recycling glass bottles.”

According to The Little Book of Merrion and Booterstown, written by journalist Hugh Oram, the Shelter Referral Bottle Bank was established by Martin McHale.

McHale was a charity worker, and a senior executive at the old Irish Glass Bottle (IGB) Company in Ringsend, the book says.

Dave Dowes, a project manager in Shelter Referral for three years during the mid-to-late ’70s said about six people lived there at a time. “They would break down bottles and the broken glass would be sold on to IGB.”

Residents slept in bunk beds, and it had a small office and dining area where up to 14 people would eat, he says.

It only closed within the last six years, Lacey says.

Lacey’s primary interest was to save the station house, he says. “Now the challenge is to see what we can do with it.”

It mightn’t be suitable for homeless accommodation because of how close it is to the railway line and the busy Merrion Road, he says. “And people might also find it isolating.”

At a meeting of the South East Area Committee on 12 February, Lacey tabled a motion asking the council’s chief executive what plans the council had to ensure the building’s stability and its future use.

Cathy Cassidy, a senior staff officer in the council, said that its culture and recreation department is seeking about €700,000 to refurbish it as an artist’s studio.

The development department has also engaged a contractor to repair its roof and guttering, and remove the graffiti, she said.