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15 Usher's Island, Dublin 8 RollingNews.ie

Council gives green light to convert James Joyce's House of the Dead into a tourist hostel

The house at 15 Usher’s Island, Dublin 8 was once home to James Joyce’s grand aunts.

DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL has given the green light to contentious plans to turn James Joyce’s ‘House of the Dead’ on Dublin’s quays into a 50 bed tourist hostel.

The Council has granted planning permission for the proposal after the planner in the case concluded that the proposed change of use to a tourist hostel “will be the best way to secure its long-term conservation”. 

The house at 15 Usher’s Island, Dublin 8 was once home to James Joyce’s grand aunts and the setting of Joyce’s best known short story, The Dead.

The plan by Fergus McCabe and Brian Stynes last year provoked a backlash with one of the country’s most popular writers, Colm Tóibín claiming that the hostel plan will “destroy an essential part of Ireland’s cultural history”.

The Department of Heritage also lodged a hard-hitting objection claiming that the proposal “will undermine, diminish, and devalue a site of universal cultural heritage, importance and part of the UNESCO City of Literature designation”.

However, the planning report recommending permission stated that “the building is capable of being converted into the new use and any harmful extensions or modifications have been removed from the scheme”. 

The Council state that the plan would allow for the refurbishment, conservation, repair and extension to an existing Protected Structure.

The Council planning report also stated that “the existing protected structure is of special interest, however its current condition is of concern and the proposed change of use will be the best way to secure its long-term conservation”. 

The Council state that the proposal provides for a hostel “on an otherwise under-utilised site located within an inner city area, proximate to public transport and other amenities”.

The Council last December sought revised plans from the applicants after its Conservation Officer raised concerns that in the absence of sufficient information “there is a risk that the historic fabric that contributes to the special architectural interest of this significant building may be lost”.

The revised plans include the omission of a contentious contemporary extension. 

The Council planner’s report states that the revised plans including the omission of the rear extension “have addressed the planning concerns with the proposal”. The planning permission is subject to 14 conditions.

Consultants for the applicants told the Council that the hostel will be managed to a high professional standard to ensure that guests are mindful of the neighbouring residential context.

They state that the substantial investment “will result in a high quality tourist offering” and those who will stay in the hostel will be overnight travellers to those wishing to stay longer in the city.

In an objection lodged with John McCourt, Colm Toibin claimed “that the atmosphere in the house and the way the rooms are configured are mostly untouched since Joyce’s time”. 

They stated that turning it into a hostel “would wreck the uniquely valuable interior which still maintains the character of the house so splendidly described” in The Dead. 

They added: “In the decades since Joyce’s death, too many of the places that have been rendered immortal in his writing have been lost to the city”. 

They pleaded: “Let us not repeat this mistake today.”

Those who lodged objections against the plan now have the option of lodging appeals against the decision to An Bord Pleanala.

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    Mute Dave Walsh
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:08 AM

    Well paid full-time jobs gone. what’s out is there is mostly short-term or zero hour part time positions. And if you attempt to join a union, your gone.. Not to mention if your older… In a few weeks they people who lost there jobs will be long forgotten by Dublin…

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    Mute Fifty Shades of Sé
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:03 AM

    Multinationals aren’t the benign overlords of FFG Mythology but relentlessly greedy entities that only care about enriching their own shareholders.

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    Mute Peter Carroll
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:12 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: The purpose of every business is to create value for a shareholder by delivering value to a customer.

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    Mute Fifty Shades of Sé
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:36 AM

    @Peter Carroll: Yet we treat them as if their purpose is to improve our domestic economy, structuring our entire tax code in their favour while ordinary Irish workers get constantly shafted.

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    Mute Peter Carroll
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:44 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: No, that’s our (the State’s) purpose. The multi-nationals come here to take advantage of and benefit from the incentives on offer. Everyone knows that that’s the deal.

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    Mute Fifty Shades of Sé
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:57 AM

    @Peter Carroll: The state is doing a much better job enriching obscenely wealthy companies than it is taking care of it’s own citizens. The Novartis employees will have to live on €200 a week until they find another job, many of them won’t be able to pay rent or a mortgage, but hey, the hedge fund owners who invest in companies like Novartis might be able to buy more private jets so it’s all good.

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    Mute Dave O'Keeffe
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    Oct 24th 2019, 8:33 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: what do you suggest? The vast majority of businesses are run the same.

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    Mute Peter Carroll
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    Oct 24th 2019, 10:08 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: I am not making a moral point. You can deal with the State through the ballot box, if you can get enough people to agree with you. Ironically, Ireland has one of the worlds largest aircraft leasing businesses!

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    Mute Fred Coloe
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    Oct 24th 2019, 10:14 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: These companies have been employing people for decades allowing said employees to build their own standard of living. Are you serious with your comment? Do you think the workers would have preferred unemployment instead?!

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    Mute Kieran Woods
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    Oct 24th 2019, 3:39 PM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: Absolute rubbish. Multinational manufacturers are huge net exporters which contribute massively to our economy without which our exchequer would not be able to provide many of its services. They have given hundreds of thousands of well paid jobs which in turn supports local suppliers, contractors and businesses. What should we do, run them away and return to making clay pipes and fiddles and become third world?

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    Mute Richard Mccarthy
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    Oct 24th 2019, 11:23 PM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: So just what do you suggest is the answer,are you suggesting we force multinationals to keep employing people against their will,they wouldn’t even set up manufactoring plants in this country in the first place, it would be much better if people like you with a huge chip on their shoulder got rid of the victim mentality and done something positive.

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    Mute Michael Patrick Newell
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    Oct 24th 2019, 9:00 AM

    Sadly when a country like ours, who over rely on the mercy of these up and leave at any time multinationals, then you always run the risk of huge job culls at times. However while the government can’t be blamed for this, it is a bit of a stomach churner that these large and very wealthy companies are given special treatment in relation to things like the tax they pay here, while home grown businesses are made to pay higher amounts all because they don’t maybe have the same financial muscle or employee numbers, but will likely last longer and not do a runner when a better opportunity in some other low level country presents itself to move operations there and leave its employees jobless…..

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    Mute Corkonian In Dublin
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    Oct 24th 2019, 11:48 AM

    The sad thing is that by announcing the job losses now to start taking place from April / May next year, actually helps Fine Gael’s election prospects in a Spring 2020 election. If those job loses were announced in April with immediate impact, it would be difficult campaigns for Simon “Get me to a BRXIT or other EU meeting to avoid home trouble” Coveney. Like Michéal “I want all the power, but not during BRXIT” Martin, they have failed the city and county of Cork.
    FFG forget that there are people outside the M50.

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