Lower Grand Canal street

UPPER GRAND CANAL STREET CLOSE TO LOVE LANE

In Temple Bar there is a laneway or an alleyway connecting Essex Street to Dame Street and in recent years I have overheard tour guides incorrectly referring to it as Love Lane when in fact it is Crampton Court. There are two possible reasons the major one being that there is a mural consisting of tiles by Anna Doran and the installation is named “Love Lane”. Also “Love the Lanes” is a joint initiative between Dublin City Council and the Temple Bar Company to bring new life to the back lanes of Temple Bar.

Love Lane is located off Upper Grand Canal Street in Dublin, Ireland. It’s near an apartment complex known as The Northumberlands. The area in general is well-serviced with a variety of amenities and is in close proximity to several notable locations.

For instance, it’s near Mount Street Bridge and the Grand Canal. It’s also within walking distance of Trinity College Dublin, The Aviva Stadium, Grand Canal Dock, the IFSC, Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, RDS Arena, and St. Brigid’s Primary School on Haddington Road.

The area is well-connected with public transport, being on the main bus route to the city from South Dublin and within walking distance of the DART station at Barrow Street and the Docklands. There’s also excellent shopping on nearby Baggot Street, along with an abundance of fine restaurants, hotels, and pubs.

DUBLINBIKES DOCKING STATION 14

Google employees will be able to cycle to and from work as there is a DublinBikes docking station across the street from their workplace.

I have not visited this area for a few years and today I was surprised to discover that the Treasury Building is currently a construction site.

When I returned from California in the 1980s I lived at the corner of Eblana Villas and Lower Grand Canal Street and at the time the building was the Hertz HQ in Ireland. There were three apartments but mine was the only one that was occupied. I think that the building is now named Wentworth House and it may have been home to a language college. I was offered all three apartments at a very good price but decided against buying as there was serious anti-social activity in the immediate area.

Google bought the Treasury Building from Ronan Group Real Estate for €120 million in early 2020 to further expand their Silicon Docks campus which is nearby. In February 2022 Dublin City Council granted planning permission to Google Ireland to increase the height of the building from six to eight storeys.

The Treasury Building was the headquarters of the Irish government’s National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) for many years. Redeveloped by Ronan Group, the Treasury Building was described as a landmark six-storey Grade A office building that previously housed Boland’s Bakery. This historic building was occupied by Éamon de Valera, later President of Ireland, during the 1916 Easter Rising.

Following its purchase in 1984, a major redevelopment saw the building stripped back to its concrete framed structure and reimagined for a new commercial future with the first 20,000 sq ft floorplates ever delivered in the Irish market.

Rowan Gillespie was commissioned to create a sculpture for the outside wall of the building. The statue, named ‘Aspiration’, was originally of a naked man climbing the outside wall, but Johnny Ronan insisted that the sculpture be changed to a woman. The statue was made of fibreglass. The sculpture was removed in 2020 when the building was sold.

DUBLINBIKES DOCKING STATION 58

ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE GOOGLE BUILDING ON GRAND CANAL STREET