Campaign to preserve 'Ireland's Alamo'
An Taisce today joined a fight to protect the building known as “Ireland’s Alamo”.
Number 16 Moore Street, in the heart of Dublin’s city centre, is revered by historians as the house where the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule finally surrendered to the Army, after moving in following a fire at the General Post Office in nearby O’Connell Street, the focal point of the rebellion.
Dublin City Council wants to demolish the terraced house as part of a redevelopment scheme for the neighbouring site of a former cinema that would see the area transformed into a shopping centre.
But doubts have arisen over the age of the now-crumbling building, which had been dismissed as “of limited historical significance”.
Initially believed to date back only to the Victorian era, conservationists now claim they have proved it was built in the early years of the 18th century.
An Taisce reckons that pulling down the house would be similar to the destruction of 18th century Irish patriot Robert Emmet’s home in another part of central Dublin around 20 years ago.
It is backing a campaign spearheaded by Arthur Gibney, a former president of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, who is an expert on the era involved, who has carried out a detailed inspection of the Moore Street premises.
He reported that Number 16 “undoubtedly belongs to the first part of the 18th century”.
Mr Gibney based his conclusion on the building’s diagonal chimney breasts.
A spokesman for An Taisce said it was clear that the decision to demolish the building to allow development of the cinema site was based on inaccurate information, insisting that the development had to prompt a revision of the authenticity and significance of the building.
He asked: “Are we going to allow the same fate to beset No 16 as occurred with Emmet’s house? If ever there was an epitaph to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Emmet’s rising and subsequent death, this should not be it.”
Council sources said that although some of the interiors may date from the 18th century, the facade of Number 16 Moore Street was replaced following the 1916 Rising, and proposals were being considered for a “suitable memorial” on the site.
Last month environmental campaigners collected signatures to a petition to save the “Alamo” building, which was a fishmongers at the time it was occupied by the Rising leaders.
On that historic Easter Saturday, Thomas Clarke, Joseph Plunkett, Sean MacDermott, Padraic Pearse and William Pearse gathered around the bed of the wounded James Connolly and agreed on the surrender, to prevent the “further slaughter of the civil population”.
Padraic Pearse then wrote the notice of surrender on a small piece of cardboard which is preserved in the National Library in Dublin.
