OLD FIRE STATION ON DORSET STREET

At the moment I am devoting a lot of time and energy to photographing and identifying old buildings before they disappear.

Some years ago we had a huge property boom here in Dublin followed by a massive economic crash and now we appear to be at the beginning of a different type of development boom and as a result I suspect that many old and landmark buildings will have disappeared before anyone has realised what has happened.

It has taken me about ten years to discover what this building was. One of my problems was that I thought it was on Bolton Street rather than Dorset street. Bolton street is much shorter that I believed it to be despite the fact that I have lived on the street for 21 years.

As you can see the building is currently surrounded by hoarding featuring the Dublin GAA colours … usually this is a bad sign as it means that we/you are expected to support the project no matter what. If I am being unfair please let me know.

Anyway I have discovered that the building was “a fine fire station designed by the city architect C.J McCarthy in 1901, this was one of a series designed by the architect in the city. The others are on Thomas Street, Tara Street and Buckingham Street. None of them are in use as fire stations today.”