A 1916 museum on Dublin’s Moore Street, which was originally due to open in the Rising centenary year, is facing further delays with the Office of Public Works (OPW) yet to seek contractors for the project.
Work on the commemorative centre at the National Monument buildings at 14-17 Moore Street was finally due to begin in 2023 at an estimated cost of at least €16.25 million.
It has emerged, however, that work has yet to start, and in an update this week the National Monuments Service said it has now been determined the OPW would need to seek fresh “ministerial consent” from the Minister for Heritage, due to the passage of time.
It was “difficult to be specific about when work will start on site”, an update issued to members of the Moore Street advisory group said.
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“Currently, they [the OPW] plan to apply to the Minister for a Ministerial Consent under the National Monuments Act in September and will hope to go out to tender as early as possible in 2025,” the update from the Monuments Service, which is under the aegis of the Department of Heritage said. “It should be stressed that these are estimates only.”
Green Party Cllr Donna Cooney said she had expected “shovels to be in the ground” last year.
“It appears to have taken more than a year just to decide that a new ministerial consent is needed when we thought work would be well under way by now. It’s nine years since the State purchased this national monument and each year we lose more Moore Street campaigners, elderly people who will now not see the centre opened.”
Work to enable 14-17 Moore Street, declared a national monument in 2007, to be opened to the public was approved by An Bord Pleanála in 2010.
The buildings, the final headquarters of the Easter Rising rebels, were bought by the State in 2015. Heather Humphreys, minister for heritage at the time, said the opening of the buildings to the public was a “very important element of the Government’s plans for the 1916 centenary commemorations”.
Within weeks, the project ground to a halt after relatives of Rising participants took legal action to extend national monument status to most buildings on the east side of Moore Street, several of which had permission for demolition under shopping centre plans.
In March 2016, Mr Justice Max Barrett found in their favour and made orders suspending work on any of the buildings, including the commemorative centre. In February 2018, the Court of Appeal overturned his ruling in full and the new minister for heritage Josepha Madigan said the opening of the commemoration centre was a “top priority”.
In December 2019, her department said she was “anxious” to see the work go ahead but it was, “not as yet in a position to say when the project will get under way”.
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