Liberty Hall, a new landmark building for Dublin?

Individual landmarks have a powerful influence over great tracts of land, and towns and cities. One such is Liberty Hall in Dublin. The name is redolent of purpose. This place is intended to be of far wider significance than the form and fabric of a building. SIPTU, the trades union inheritors of this building have obtained planning permission to demolish the existing 16-storey building and construct a 22-storey tower with greater facilities for the public (theatre, heritage centre, viewing platform)

The current 1960s building was the tallest building in Dublin and commands views along the river Liffey (building on the left behind the Ha'penny Bridge, click here for more). Although more recently taller buildings have been constructed, a general antipathy to tower blocks has meant that Liberty Hall remains an icon building, one that is used by Dublin citiens and visitors to orientate themselves physically (and arguably socially?).

The origin of its prominent position was in an earlier Liberty Hall, headquarters of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, who led the wider Dublin trades union movement through a general lockout in 1913, under the leadership of Jim Larkin (A statue of whom stands prominently in O'|Connell Street, right  click here for original) and James Connolly.

They went on to form -under the leadership of James Connolly- the Irish Citizens Army and the original Liberty Hall became a command and control centre (as well as an armoury) for the 1916 Easter uprising, which proclaimed an independent republic and from which the modern Irish state traces its origin.

SINN FEIN RISING - LIBERTY HALL  (film opens in new window)

Irish Citizen Army outside Liberty Hall, lined up under a banner proclaiming "We serve neither King nor Kaiser, but Ireland!"

Liberty Hall, a photo by National Library of Ireland on The Commons on Flickr. 

NLI Ref.: Ke 198

View Liberty Hall in a larger map