Public Buildings

The Customs House (James Gandon)

This is an illustration of the Customs House in 1817 by James Malton. The original custom house in Dublin was built in 1707 by Thomas Burgh, and was situated further up the Liffey on Essex Quay. There was a significant need for the construction of a new custom house as the old custom house was seen as being unsafe only 70 years after its construction. The New Custom House (here pictured) was designed by James Gandon, a famous architect of the time. With the newly reclaimed land in the dockland area of the Liffey a site was chosen further downstream of the Liffey for the new building. This new site was not concrete and there were fears that the building would sink eventually, however Gandon’'s new construction plans involved using planks of wood to form a base over the marsh on which the building would stand. The building was completed in 1871. It suffered heavily in the Irish War of Independence in 1921, when a large number of public records were destroyed by fire. However, after some renovations to repair the house, it still stands tall along the Liffey.

The Customs House (James Gandon)

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Public buildings began to be used in Ireland with the dawning of the modern age. They are associated with commercial activity and the development of town life. Great civilizations have always given rise to great public buildings where the size of an urban population has made it essential to provide buildings for its needs: examples are the markets and theatres of ancient Greece and the baths, stadia and basilicas for the courts of the Roman world.

Commerce and Justice in the Ireland of St. Patrick, the gaelic kingships and medieval knights, tended to take place in a monastic precinct or castle hall. It is only with the growth of the independent towns founded by Norse settlers at the mouth of the Irish rivers - Donegal, Carlingford, Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Limerick and Galway - that the need for special building became apparent. Here the world of business takes precedence. Society needed financial houses (in Ireland often called a 'Tholsel') to exchange money, Market Houses to exchange goods and produce, and Town Halls for the people who governed a town or city to hold their meetings.

In the late Stuart and Georgian periods the settled state of Irish society required a permanent Parliament House in Dublin. Customs Houses were built at the major ports to administer the duties charged on imports and exports and, later, all the structures associated with civilized city life, theatres, assembly rooms, concert halls, libraries and clubs. Buildings intended for health, justice and security make up the principal public buildings of the Victorian era.

Gallery

Market House (1979)

Digital reproduction of an original black and white photograph. From Church Square, Market Street climbs up a slight incline and opens into a broad sloping triangular place surrounding the Market house. The latter is splendid, one of the most delicate and elegant 18th century buildings in the North. The area has been described by Brett as a dignified space, which loses its character through too much car parking.

Permission to reproduce this photograph kindly granted by Monaghan County Museum

Market House (1979) - Permission to reproduce this photograph kindly granted by Monaghan County Museum

Tholsel, Dublin

This is an illustration by James Malton of the Tholsel in Dublin in the late 18th century. These Tholsel houses (as they were known as in Ireland) were financial centres were people came to exchange money. They also served as places for official meetings of the towns. This Tholsel in Dublin was situated in Christchurch Place. However it was taken down in 1809 as the building structure had begun to decay due to the marshy land it had been built upon. The name is derived from the old words ‘toll-stall’ or ‘toll-gatherer’s stall or seat’ meaning the place where the collectors came to receive customs and tolls for the goods coming into the town. The building was also used for meetings with the lord mayor of Dublin and sheriffs to discuss the business of the town. In this particular Tholsel the lower floor was used as the market and customs finances and the upper floor was used by the town officials for their meetings.

Tholsel, Dublin -

Royal Hospital Kilmainham

This is a photo of the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham from its side. This hospital, known as the 'old man's hospital' was built in 1680 under Charles II by order of the Earl of Ormonde, the Deputy Governor. The hospital was so called because it was used mainly for old and maimed soldiers at the time. The grounds consisted of a few acres of the phoenix park where the hospitaller knights worked from their headquarters. These were an order of men consisting of physicians, warriors, philosophers and lawyers.

Royal Hospital Kilmainham -

The Gaol, Carlow

The Carlow Gaol stood upon a site of two statute acres. It was surrounded by a twenty-foot wall of limestone, coped with granite, and had an impressive entrance of cut granite. The property included a governor's four storied dwelling house, a female prison, a hospital and convalescent ward, debtors' and convicts' prisons, a two storied house of correction and untried prisoners' apartments. The Gaol also had two gatekeepers’ apartments, stables, straw and coach houses and a walled-in garden of about half an acre. The Gaol was later an engineering works and is currently a Shopping Centre. The Governor's house is now incorporated into a restaurant in the centre of the development. The granite entrance is still in use and features stags/animal heads which were salvaged from the 1930’s fire at Duckett’s Grove, Carlow.

Carlow County Library

The Gaol, Carlow - Carlow County Library

Health, Justice and Security

Carlow Courthouse, Carlow

Carlow Courthouse – Front approach. Architect: William Vitruvius Morrison (1794-1838). Carlow Courthouse was designed by William Vitruvius Morrison and completed in 1834. It was built under the patronage of the Grand Jury and the Bruen Family of Oak Park, Carlow. It is built of Carlow Granite and set on a high podium, approached by nineteen steps. The Courthouse is designed in the classical style with a projecting central block, screened by an Ionic portico of eight columns with pediment and cornice. On either side of the main hall are the courtrooms covered by half domes and lit through diocletian windows. The courthouse is surrounded by fine cast iron railings and is strategically situated at the junction of the Athy Road and the Old Dublin Road. The interior was refurnished c. 1995 but some of the original features remain intact. Carlow Courthouse is considered to be one of the finest courthouses in Ireland.

Carlow County Library

Carlow Courthouse, Carlow
Carlow County Library

Carlow Courthouse, Carlow

Carlow County Library

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In the reign of Charles II the number of Irish soldiers let loose in the country at the end of the Dutch Wars led the king to found Kilmainham Royal Hospital in 1680 for veterans of the Irish army. Some 100 years later, in 1786, the Irish government embarked on a monumental public building, the Four Courts in Dublin. After a further 30 years, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the returning soldiery and the pressures of economic change led to such a state of general lawlessness that Courth Houses and Prisons had to be erected in every Irish county. Early in Queen Victoria's reign the passing of the Irish Poor Law was to establish Workhouses throughout the land. General and Fever Hospitals are the typical
public buildings of the later Victorian period and new town halls, often in a florid an ambitious style of architecture, follow in the 1890s and in the Edwardian age.

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