A unique chance to restore Dublin's 'Georgian Mile'

The Irish Times

The ESB's planning application for a major office development in Leopardstown opens up the possibility that the damage it did to Dublin's "Georgian Mile" more than 30 years ago could be undone. In the late 1960s, the ESB demolished 16 Georgian houses in Lower Fitzwilliam Street to build its new headquarters on the site, sanctioned by the late Neil Blaney. The board claimed that the late-18th-century houses were structurally unsound and commissioned Sir John Summerson, an English architectural historian, to condemn them as "simply one damned house after another". However, if the board were to evacuate the city centre for Leopardstown, it would be possible to rebuild the 16 houses - both inside and out - thereby reinstating Lower Fitzwilliam Street and atoning for what was probably the worst single crime perpetrated on Georgian Dublin.

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