Pigeon House museum backed by ESB

THE ESB has agreed to make a valuable 7.5 acre site and buildings at the former Pigeon House power station in Dublin available to a group which hopes to develop a £12 million national science museum.

Copies of a feasibility study detailing how the former station, built in 1904 and decommissioned in 1976, could be converted into a museum were presented yesterday to Alderman Sean Dublin Bay Rockall Loftus, and to the ESB chief executive, Mr Joe Moran.

It was a "very valuable site and has historic value", Mr Moran said yesterday. Yet the company was willing to make it available as part of a heritage development.

"We like to be part of the community and as part of that community you have to contribute." He welcomed the strong involvement of the Ringsend community in supporting the project.

The ambitious plan, undertaken by a group established by the Ringsend and District Community Centre in conjunction with FAS, calls for a £7 million refurbishment of the Pigeon House and a £4 million investment in science and technology exhibits. Its promoters hope to have phase one of the complex open by 20,00.

The site has its own harbour and is adjacent to the ESB's Poolbeg power station. The company had planned to demolish the building, but a group of workers at the Poolbeg station began examining the possibility of saving the historic plant, one of the first European stations to provide three phase power.

Ald Loftus thanked the ESB "for helping us to recycle this facility", adding that it would make a good millennium project for State funding.

Dr John Lynch, director general of FAS, said his organisation was "pleased to be associated with it".

The chairman of the Ringsend community centre, Mr Joe Whelan, said: "The people in the community have taken it [the project] on board and have already benefited. We hope and the residents of Ringsend hope that it will progress and that the community can continue to contribute to its success. It is essential that the community continues to be involved."

The station may have been rescued from destruction because of the literary bent of a Poolbeg technical officer, Mr Henry Hudson. He noted the many literary references to Pigeon House, particularly in Joyce's works.

The building's foundation stone has the name of the then lord mayor, Mr Timothy Harrington, who was a friend of Joyce.

It also carries the name of Cllr J.P. Nanetti, a member of the Dublin Corporation Lighting Committee which founded the station. An episode of Ulysses is set in Nanetti's office at the Freeman's Journal. The station ledger for bloomsday, June 16th, 1904, is on display in the Poolbeg Exhibition Hall.