Campaigners trying to save the last headquarters of the leaders of the 1916 Rising will stand outside the GPO today and seek 1,916 signatures for their petition.
Number 16 Moore Street became a brief headquarters for the rebel leaders after they abandoned the GPO on Friday, April 28th, 1916. It housed Hanlon's Fishmongers at the time.
The three-storey building forms part of the Carlton development site, on which Dublin City Council recently placed a compulsory purchase order. The building currently houses a clothes shop and is in poor condition.
In a letter to some Dublin city councillors last November, the assistant city manager, Mr Seán Carey, said the planning permission for the site provided for the demolition of No 16 and adjoining buildings. The owners of one of the buildings has since sought leave to appeal the Bord Pleanála decision.
Mr Carey said the building was of "limited historical importance" and it would be more appropriate to have a visitor facility in the GPO. He said the development of the Carlton site was vital to the O'Connell Street regeneration plan.
A Dublin city council spokeswoman said yesterday this was still the case.
The leaders were in 16 Moore Street when they decided to surrender on Easter Saturday 1916.
Thomas Clarke, Joseph Plunkett, Seán MacDermott, Pádraic Pearse and William Pearse gathered around the bed of the wounded James Connolly and eventually agreed on the surrender, to prevent the "further slaughter of the civil population".
Pádraic Pearse wrote the notice of surrender on a small piece of cardboard which is preserved in the National Library, Kildare Street.
Mr Matt Doyle, of the National Graves Association, said the building was of national importance.
"If this was America, it would be equivalent of the Alamo," he said.
