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Mary Aikenhead House

Mary Aikenhead House

Recently I attended the funeral of my friend’s mother (Betty). Her mother (my friend’s Grandmother) lived in Mary Aikenhead House and I loved when I got to visit. In those days (I’m going back fifty plus years) the flats looked smart and well kept. Built more than eighty years ago they seemed very modern and stylish at the time. The flat had two bedrooms, toilet, bathroom (separate from the toilet with a full sized bath), kitchen, sitting room with fireplace and hallway. I liked calling in with my friend to his granny’s. There was always home made apple or rhubarb tarts and always the smell of something tasty in the kitchen. The place was  always spotless and the kettle always topped up for visitors.

Recently, only reminiscing at a get together with my friend’s cousin we were travelling back to when we were kids visiting the flats, with the clothes lines and the sheds and the carry on. Through children’s eyes she, like myself, thought the place was a new future-like landscape even though the building had been constructed decades before. The building complex is named after Mother Mary Aikenhead, founder of the Religious Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Charity of Australia, and of St. Vincent’s Hospital Dublin.

The complex, located next to Saint James’s Hospital grounds (on James’s Street with an additional section on Lower Basin Street) with 150 flats, was completed in June 1940. The early social housing scheme was designed by a legendary figure in Dublin Architecture, Herbert George Simms, who took up the newly created position of Corporation Housing Architect with the Dublin Corporation from 1932/48. Simms, the son of a London train driver studied Architecture at Liverpool University and his designs were strongly influenced by (at the time) new Dutch apartment blocks, in particular by architects Michel de Klerk in Amsterdam and JP Oud and Johannes van Hardeveld, Rotterdam. During his time with the Dublin Corporation he was responsible for the design use in some 17,000 residences, including both flats and houses. With tenements and slum dwellings commonplace in the city a newly elected Fianna Fail in 1932 saw Simms at the forefront of a policy of housing development and renewal of Dublin, including garden suburbs and the successful policy of ‘decanting,’ a process of building four storey complexes on derelict sites before demolishing older and overcrowded buildings.

Mary Aikenhead House is an example of modernist architecture with some materials used in the construction supplied from the area. The corner flats had front balconies large enough for outdoor sleeping (as advertised at the time and perhaps to do with the Tuberculosis crisis and outbreaks of the day). The complex comprises two blocks and enclosed a courtyard with sheds. The building also included two retail units on the north block with access to the shops from both inside the complex and by an exterior elevated front on James’s Street. The roofs are flat with projecting eaves and originally were with rendered chimneystacks.

The four-storey buildings were the first in the city to be provided with specially planned Air Raid Precaution basement shelters and included sick bays. ‘The Emergency’ period in Ireland was from 1939 until 1946, during which time the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) branch was established. With the Republic of Ireland hit by bombs a number of times during WWII between 1940 to 1941 by the German Luftwaffe, the ARP branch served an important purpose in equipping areas to protect themselves during attacks. By September 1940 trench shelters had accommodation for 6,500 people, and were situated at Fitzwilliam Square, the Custom House, Merrion Square, Oscar Square, Saint Patrick’s Park, Spitalfields, Pimlico and Ormond Street. The overground shelters, which were situated in the principal streets and in the vicinity of tenements gave accommodation to some additional eight thousand people. When ‘The Emergency’ passed the space was intermittently used by the Legion Of Mary and the local youth clubs.

Over decades the complex, like many other city builds, fell into disrepair as the country continued with high unemployment, poverty, emigration and anti-social behaviour. Work then began on surveying the complex and by August 2022 refurbishment to the flats were carried out by Waterman Moylan with work carried out in six phases. This included major modifications to apartment layouts, structural alterations, complete new electrical, mechanical, security and access systems, complete renewal of internal and external drainage systems and redevelopment of external areas around the buildings greening and car parking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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