19 Abbey Street Upper
This three-storey mid-19th century building on this street on the northside of Dublin is something of a curiosity in a block largely levelled and rebuilt by prolific Dublin apartment developer the late Liam Carroll.
Previously a ground-floor shop with two storeys of accommodation above, number 19 faces the Luas line and adjoins TP Smith’s pub, a protected structure dating back to the 1750s. Though not itself a protected structure, 19 may internally be just as old; Rocque’s 1766 map of Dublin shows the pub and number 19 as a single house.
[ Derelict Dublin: 10 empty southside buildings in a city with a housing crisisOpens in new window ]
While the pub thrives, the building has been vacant for more than two decades and is in a dilapidated state, with the ground floor shop rendered over and window braces securing the upper facade.
In 1999 Carroll’s company Fabrizia applied to demolish the block surrounding the pub and number 19 for an apartment and commercial scheme on a site he had assembled stretching from Abbey Street to Great Strand Street and Jervis Street to become the Millennium Walkway.
One month after he secured permission in 2000, another Carroll company, Danninger, became the owner of number 19, with records showing a deed of transfer from the Very Rev William McGonagle of the Oblate order.
However, despite applying for several amendments to his 2000 permission, before and during its construction, Carroll never included the building in his scheme.
In 2010 the property was among several to which AIB appointed receivers, though it was not immediately offered for sale due to the property crash.
In 2018 it appeared its prospects were about to improve with a new owner, Shichao Wang, securing planning permission, for its renovation and restoration. A cafe was planned at ground floor level, with apartments above.
This development never went ahead and in 2022 the building was offered for sale with a guide price of €300,000.
In November 2024 a new company, Laoye Ltd, with directors Changrong Ye and Li Chang Chen, submitted a new application to Dublin City Council to renovate the building, with a shop on the ground floor, accommodation above and some extensions to the rear. This application is due to be determined shortly. – Olivia Kelly
60-61 North King Street
North King Street is bisected by Church Street. East, it is a four-lane highway; west, it is a narrow two-lane road.
While there are some fine historic buildings, it also has some of the most notorious derelict sites in the city, typified by numbers 60-61. The dilapidated state of these former houses reflects the dichotomy of the two halves of North King Street.
Dublin Corporation, the council’s predecessor, bought these houses in the 1940s for a road-widening scheme. It granted a 20-year licence to the previous owners to stay, with the proviso it would terminate if road widening went ahead. The road was widened to the east, but not to the west, but the corporation did not repossess numbers 60-61 following the end of the lease in 1969.
In 2004, the council conducted a title search and found the owner of land to the rear of numbers 60-61 had in 1981 granted a 35-year lease of the council properties to a car parts business. In 2007, that rear site owner claimed title under adverse possession, also known as “squatter’s rights”.
The council entered into negotiations with the claimant, but these were complicated by another party claiming they had used the site as a stables. Discussions ceased in 2015.
In 2019 Isle of Man-registered company Yellowline Limited, which owns 62-65 North King Street (also derelict), said it was now the owner of the site to the rear of numbers 60-61 and wanted to buy out the council.
In 2021 councillors were asked to approve the sale to Yellowline for €35,000. They balked at the low sum and instead asked for negotiations to be opened to acquire some of the apartments Yellowline planned to build.
The council said no negotiations have taken place since and the lands remain undeveloped. Attempts to contact Yellowline proved unsuccessful. -Olivia Kelly
23-28 Parnell Square North
The students at Coláiste Mhuire did not return to the buildings that used to house their Gaelscoil on Parnell Square North after the Christmas break in 2002 because an inspector raised concerns about the poor state of the listed structures, which date from the 1700s. They have remained empty ever since.
At first the Christian Brothers, who owned the buildings, entered negotiations with the Department of Education about renovation financing, but then they gifted the buildings to the Office of Public Works (OPW) as part the order’s contribution to the redress scheme that arose from inquiries into historic abuse in State-owned institutions.
The State considered using the buildings to house the Abbey Theatre, which would be moved from Lower Abbey Street. Then those plans were shelved and the Office of Public Works (OPW) and Dublin City Council did a land swap: the Parnell Square buildings went to the council in return for land in Finglas and Inchicore.
The council drew up a plan for a cultural and entertainment hub on Parnell Square, with the former school becoming a luxury hotel and the old Ambassador cinema, on the southern end of the square, a cabaret venue.
Then the former cinema was to become the new city library, replacing the one in the Ilac Centre. Then it was decided the library should be in the Coláiste Mhuire buildings, as part of a “cultural cluster” stretching to both sides of the Hugh Lane Gallery. There were delays in submitting the application to An Bord Pleanála.
Meanwhile, discussions continued about funding models. All the time the envisaged cost of the project increased. By 2018 it was envisaged the project would cost €130 million. Soon afterwards it was decided the development should be introduced in phases. Negotiations about finance continued as the Covid pandemic hit, Russia invaded Ukraine and, globally, construction costs climbed.
Asked about the current status of the project, a spokeswoman for the council said it was “progressing well” with phase one, which involves numbers 23 to 28 Parnell Square North and the Hugh Lane Gallery.
“The publicly procured tender process has commenced and it is envisaged that a contractor will be on site by Q4 2025,” she said. – Colm Keena
11 Lower Ormond Quay
In August 2024, 11 Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin 1 was the scene of an outbreak of violence as squatters in the building were apparently attacked by anti-immigration activists. The Garda Armed Support and Public Order units were called, such was the violence.
The four-storey-over-basement building between Capel Street bridge and the Millennium Bridge dates back to the 1670s and was originally a pair of houses, accounting for the two front doors. It is on a Dublin quayside that, according to the National Built Heritage Service, remains one of capital’s best-preserved river frontages.
For many years number 11 hosted offices and an apartment on the top floor (this reporter lived there in the 1980s and 1990s), but it had lain vacant for some time when architects Douglas Wallace, according to their website, were engaged and developed a plan for it being used for residential purposes.
The owners at the time were Collen Investments Ltd, an Irish company ultimately controlled by a Dublin-resident Chinese property investor named Yong Wu. Public records show Collen bought the property in 2018. Dublin City Council wanted the property used for long-term residential but the architects successfully secured planning permission for eight short-stay studio apartments while restoring the building’s “historic fabric and structure”.
Planning permission was granted in November 2021. But the development never went ahead and in March 2023 the building was acquired by Barry’s Hotel Ltd, part of the hospitality and property group owned by Irish resident Chinese national Colm, or Guoqing, Wu. Among other businesses, Wu owns the Mulligan & Haines gastropub on Dame Street.
In May of last year receivers were appointed to properties he owns worth about €6 million. Liquidators appointed to three of his companies, including the company behind the Dame Street pub, have brought High Court proceedings against Wu and the companies.
The claims against Wu, which he is contesting, include allegations that he oversaw multiple transactions between his various trading and investment companies that were apparently designed to defraud their creditors, including the Revenue Commissioners.
The building on Ormond Quay has been on the market for the past year and is currently sale agreed with Robert Colleran property consultants at €1.25 million. – Colm Keena
18 Russell Street
The site at the corner of North Circular Road and Russell Street, opposite Gill’s pub and close to Croke Park, has been an eyesore for decades.
In 2004 the council submitted plans for a 22-unit social housing development on two blocks, even though part of the site for the intended development, number 18 Russell Street, was not in its possession.
That planning application was ultimately withdrawn, and number 18 remains outside the council’s possession. Publicly available property records do not reveal who owns it. The last available public record is of AIB registering a charge against the building in January 1999.
The site has been identified by the council as a “strategic site for redevelopment”, but efforts to acquire the site in full have been continuing for years. The buildings have either collapsed or are in an advanced state of decay.
“In order to enhance the site and maximise development potential the council has in recent years endeavoured to acquire lands adjacent to land already in its ownership,” a spokeswoman for the council said.
“It has now acquired by agreement the site at 553 North Circular Road/19 Russell Street and number 18A Russell Street and is endeavouring to acquire number 18 Russell Street,” she said.
“Consideration is being given to acquisition by way of compulsory purchase order and [the council] is determining next steps.” – Colm Keena
148 Parnell Street
The newsagents at 148 Parnell Street was reputedly the oldest in Dublin when it closed in December 2013 after more than a century in business.
Not only was Lucky Duffy’s a local institution, the narrow, early 19th-century Georgian building had been home to the same family for more than a century, until the late Patty Duffy sold up just 12 years ago. It was a late surviving example of a merchant house designed for living over the shop which was still being used as originally envisaged.
It was acquired by Alan Matthews and Rachel Cadden, who have an address on Mountjoy Square, in August 2015, and the new owners soon submitted a plan to restore and extend the building and convert each of the upper floors into one-bed apartments.
A successful planning application in January 2016 was appealed and a June 2016 inspection report for An Bord Pleanála indicates the building was in need of extensive work. It said: “The upper floors of the building would appear to have been last in use as residential; however, the upper floors are dilapidated.”
The “interior at several locations is in an advanced state of dilapidation”, the report said. “The deterioration is such that for health and safety reasons it was not possible to access the top floor for inspection.
“While some of the original fittings still exist, many have been changed or removed over time. The upper floors appear abandoned for some time; they cannot be considered habitable in the current state, nor can the basement level.”
Planning permission was granted; however, development did not take place. In November 2022 the building was acquired by JIHE Ltd, 2/2A Talbot Street, a company owned by four shareholders: Jie Zhou, with an address on Parnell Street, Yunqin and Weian Zhou, with an address in Fuqing City, China, and Binghe Liu, also with an address in Fuqing City. The building currently remains undeveloped.
Attempts to secure a comment from JIHE met with no response. – Colm Keena
22a Berkeley Road
An old image of this property from 2009 shows a large plastic ice cream cone sitting in front of a vibrant teal shopfront located at 22a Berkeley Road in Phibsborough on the northside of Dublin. This summer scene captured on Google Street View is of newsagents Selections.
This is a building that has long been used as retail premises, with 1911 census records showing it was then occupied by a shopkeeper and his family, who lived overhead.
More than a century later, the property, which is covered with graffiti, has lain vacant for a decade or so, falling into a state of disrepair, with decaying signage and overgrown weeds emerging from the upper level.
Last year, signage reading “Selections” had been altered in an attempt to spell “dereliction”, an apparent act borne of frustration that the site has been unused for the best part of a decade.
The most recent available images showing the property in use date back to 2014, with imagery from Google Street View through the years showing the bright shop front slowly descend into decay since its shutters closed.
The building was first brought to the attention of Dublin City Council in 2021 upon receipt of a complaint. Notices of intention to add the property to the Derelict Sites Register were served in May 2022 on owners Brian Farren, Niall Farren and Conor Farren, addressed to O’Shea Farren Solicitors in Ballsbridge on the southside of Dublin.
The property was added to the register on March 1st, 2023. A valuation of the site that same year carried out by the council put the property’s worth at €500,000.
The building, which has a two-bedroom apartment on the upper floor and is situated directly across from a proposed MetroLink station, was subsequently put on the market last year at a guiding price of €475,000, though it has not yet sold. – Jack White
79/80 Talbot Street
Located just 350m from O’Connell Street, the former premises of Guineys department store at 79/80 Talbot Street has been vacant since it closed its doors in 2012. A sister shop of Clerys on O’Connell Street, the department store’s origins stretch back to 1921 when it was opened at number 79 by Denis Guiney, who later expanded into number 80.
The store was destroyed during the Civil War in 1922 and reopened a year later. It suffered further damage in the 1974 Dublin bombings when one of three car bombs across Dublin city centre exploded outside, killing 14 people.
Following its closure in 2012 after it was placed into liquidation, the four-storey building was put on the market for €850,000 before being purchased by Noel Tynan, owner of the neighbouring Celt Bar. Planning permission, lodged by his wife Clare Tynan to demolish the property and develop a 44-bedroom hotel, was granted in 2017.
However, the project never went ahead, and the Tynans put the property on the market in 2019 seeking €4.25 million. The property is still owned by the couple, who sought planning permission last summer for a restaurant and bar on the ground floor of the building.
This planning permission was granted last month, despite a planner’s report outlining concerns about the creation of a “superpub”, saying its relationship with the adjoining Celt Pub was “unclear”. It noted that the plans appear to show the two premises sharing toilets and a smoking area to the rear.
“This is notwithstanding the fact that numbers 81-82 are not shown to be in the applicant’s ownership, although it was previously shown as being in the applicant’s ownership,” the report said. – Jack White
118-121 Dorset Street Upper
While development of the surrounding area of Dorset Street Upper continues, numbers 118-121 have remained largely unchanged. Located directly across from the Maldron hotel, the row of three-storey dilapidated buildings are all being investigated by Dublin City Council for inclusion to its Derelict Sites Register.
Census records dating back to 1911 show their historical use as family-run businesses with living quarters above. However, over the last 30 years or so, the buildings have largely fallen into vacancy and disrepair.
Number 118, for example, which previously contained a grocery shop on the ground floor, appears to have been vacant since 2019. While some of the ground floor of number 119 was previously an optician’s in the 1990s, directories dating back to 1993 suggest the other half appears to have been vacant for at least three decades.
In 2005, planning permission was granted to its owner, John Meagher, to redevelop number 119, which would have included the construction of a new penthouse apartment. However, the site remains undeveloped and unused.
Number 120, meanwhile, which was previously a typewriter shop until it closed within the last decade, appears to have been vacant since.
Land Registry records show that numbers 118, 119 and 120 are owned by Wing On, a small private company, the director of which was John Meagher in 2023. Following site inspections, the council’s derelict sites section issued letters to the owner asking that it to take action to ensure they do not fall into “further disrepair”. Dublin City Council said it is awaiting a response.
Number 121, meanwhile, which has had a pizzeria on its ground floor for almost two decades, is owned by Abifresh Property Rentals.
In December, the council issued a notice of intention to add the building to its Derelict Sites Register, before Abifresh advised that it was occupied and in use. As a result, the building’s addition to the register has been deferred and the owners have been asked to paint the facade of the building. – Jack White
19 Buckingham Street Lower
Passersby might wonder why murals of vampires in coffins, bats and lengthy quotes adorn the walls of 19 Buckingham Street Lower in Dublin’s north inner city. Located at the corner of Killarney Street, the three-storey residential redbrick is a shrine of sorts to Dracula author Bram Stoker.
Other Stoker residences are better known, including Stoker’s birthplace at 15 Marino Crescent, in Clontarf, or 30 Kildare Street, where he lived before his move to London. It was discovered in recent years, however, that Buckingham Street Upper was the site of a house that Stoker lived in from his childhood years to his adolescence. The author lived at number 17 from 1858 to 1864.
Number 17, however, was one of several buildings demolished to make way for the Sean Treacy House apartment complex and so a plaque to Stoker was instead erected at 19 Buckingham Street Lower to mark his time in the area.
Despite celebrating the Irish author, the building has fallen into disrepair and is vacant since 2017, according to Dublin City Council, which said it has used the property in the past for “various needs of the local area”.
The council said it has tried to engage with the owner of number 19 “but attempts have proved unsuccessful” and it is now considering options including a compulsory purchase order to acquire the property.
However, Land Registry records show the council has been the full owner of the property since 2014. The council has been contacted for further comment. – Jack White
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