The Irish Times

What do you get when an architect buries a pair of concrete boxes behind a churchyard wall in the Liberties, with no windows as such and no doors you can open either? The answer is the most radically unconventional "semi-ds" in Dublin. Whoever buys them will even get an archaeological drawing each of the Norman layer from which the site was excavated to the rear of St Nicholas of Myra's church on Francis Street, a place dear to the heart and lateral-thinking mind of Tom de Paor, the architect. John Dillon Street never saw anything like this. Old and new residents of this gentrifying area of artisan houses might have anticipated something similar to be built on the site, but Jay Bourke is no ordinary developer and Tom de Paor is no ordinary architect.