| Leinster House | |
|---|---|
Teach Laighean | |
 Main façade of Leinster House. | |
  Location of Leinster House inDublin | |
| General information | |
| Architectural style | Georgian,Palladian |
| Location | Kildare Street,Dublin, Ireland |
| Coordinates | 53°20′26″N6°15′14″W / 53.34055°N 6.254021°W /53.34055; -6.254021 |
| Current tenants | Oireachtas |
| Construction started | 1745 |
| Completed | 1748 |
| Technical details | |
| Material | Ardbraccan limestone |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Richard Cassels |
| Developer | James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster |
Leinster House (Irish:Teach Laighean) is the seat of theOireachtas, the parliament ofIreland. Originally, it was the ducal palace of theDukes of Leinster.
Since 1922, it has been a complex of buildings which housesOireachtas Éireann, its members and staff. The most recognisable part of the complex and the "public face" of Leinster House continues to be the former ducal palace at the core of the complex.
Leinster House was the formerducal residence inDublin of theDuke of Leinster, and since 1922 has served as the parliament building of theIrish Free State, the predecessor of the modern Irish state, before which it functioned as the headquarters of theRoyal Dublin Society. The society's famous Dublin Spring Show and Dublin Horse Show were held on its Leinster Lawn, facingMerrion Square. The building is the meeting place ofDáil Éireann andSeanad Éireann, the two houses of theOireachtas, and as such the term 'Leinster House' has become ametonym for Irish political activities.
Ireland's parliament over the centuries had met in a number of locations, most notably in theIrish Houses of Parliament atCollege Green, next toTrinity College Dublin. Its medieval parliament consisted of two Houses, aHouse of Commons and aHouse of Lords. Ireland's senior peer, the Earl of Kildare, had a seat in the Lords. Like all the aristocrats of the period, for the duration of theSocial Season and parliamentary sessions, he and his family resided in state in a Dublin residence.[1]
From the late eighteenth century, Leinster House (then calledKildare House) was the Earl's official Dublin residence. When it was first built in 1745–48 byJames FitzGerald, Earl of Kildare, it was located on the unfashionable and isolated south side of the city, far from the main locations of aristocratic residences, namely Rutland Square (nowParnell Square) andMountjoy Square. The Earl predicted that others would follow; in succeeding decades Merrion Square andFitzwilliam Square became the primary location of residences of the aristocracy, with many of their northside residences being sold (many subsequently deteriorating and ending up as slums). The building itself was designed by architectRichard Cassels while some of the later elements and interior were designed byIsaac Ware.[2][3]
In the history of aristocratic residences in Dublin, no other mansion matched Kildare House for its sheer size or status. When the Earl was made the firstDuke of Leinster in 1766, the family's Dublin residence was renamed Leinster House.[4] Its first and second floors were used as the floor model for theWhite House by Irish architectJames Hoban,[5] while the house itself was used as a model for the original stone-cut White House exterior.[6]
One famous member of the family who occasionally resided in Leinster House wasLord Edward FitzGerald, who became involved with Irish nationalism during the1798 Rebellion, which cost him his life. With the passage of theAct of Union in 1800, Ireland ceased to have its own parliament. Without a House of Lords to attend, increasing numbers of aristocrats stopped coming to Dublin, selling off their Dublin residences, in many cases to buy residences in London, where the new united parliament met.[7]
The 3rd Duke of Leinster sold Leinster House in 1815 to theRoyal Dublin Society. In 1853 theGreat Industrial Exhibition was hosted in its grounds.[8] TheNatural History Museum was built on the site in 1857.[9] Around the same time, two new wings were added, to house theNational Library of Ireland and theNational Museum of Ireland.[10]
TheAnglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 provided for the creation of a self-governing Irishdominion, to be called the Irish Free State. As plans were made to bring the new state into being, the Provisional Government underW. T. Cosgrave sought a temporary venue for the meetings of the new Chamber of DeputiesDáil Éireann and SenateSeanad Éireann. Plans were made to turnRoyal Hospital Kilmainham, an eighteenth-century former soldiers' home in extensive parklands, into a full-time Parliament House. However, as it was still under the control of theBritish Army, who had yet to withdraw from it, and the newGovernor-General of the Irish Free State was due to deliver the Speech from the Throne opening parliament within weeks, Michael Collins decided to hire the Leinster House complex for use from September 1922 as a temporary Dáil chamber as it housed a large lecture theatre that could easily be adapted to the needs of the Oireachtas.[11]
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In 1924, due to financial constraints, plans to turn the Royal Hospital into a parliament house were abandoned; Leinster House, instead becoming the chapel of democracy, was bought,[4] pending the provision of a proper parliament house at some stage in the future. A new Senate or Seanad chamber was created in the Duke's old ballroom, while wings from the neighbouringRoyal College of Science were taken over and used as Government Buildings. The entire Royal College of Science, which by then had been merged withUniversity College Dublin, was subsequently taken over in 1990 and turned into state-of-the-art Government Buildings.[12]
Since then, a number of extensions have been added, most recently in 2000, to provide adequate office space for 174TDs, 60 senators, members of the press and other staff. Among the world leaders who have visited Leinster House to addressjoint sessions of the Oireachtas are U.S. presidentsJohn F. Kennedy,Ronald Reagan andBill Clinton; British Prime MinisterTony Blair; Australian prime ministersBob Hawke,Paul Keating, andJohn Howard; and French PresidentFrançois Mitterrand.[13]
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A number of monuments stand or have stood, around Leinster House. Its Kildare Street frontage used to be dominated byQueen Victoria, a large seated bronze statue byJohn Hughes, first unveiled by KingEdward VII in 1908. Considering it inappropriate to have the British Queen overlooking the Irish parliament it was relocated to theRoyal Hospital Kilmainham in 1948, as part of moves by the Irish state towardsdeclaring a Republic.[14] It was re-erected in 1987 in front of theQueen Victoria Building inSydney, Australia. Facing the garden front on its Merrion Square side, stands a large triangular monument commemorating three founding figures of Irish independence,President of Dáil ÉireannArthur Griffith, who died in 1922,Michael Collins, who was shot and killed in an ambush by anti-treaty forces in 1922, andKevin O'Higgins, the Chairman of the Provisional Government and the Vice-President of the Executive Council (deputy prime minister), who was assassinated in 1927. Another statue commemorates the Prince Consort,Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who held his major Irish Exhibition on Leinster Lawn in the 1850s.[15]
The main building has undergone regular extensions fromVictorian times, through to a major extension to create offices for TDs in the 1960s, to most recently the building ofLeinster House 2000, a new block of offices built to the north of the original ducal palace. The main extensions are:
A commissioned report delivered to theCeann Comhairle's office in 2008 cast serious doubts on the safety of Leinster House without major remedial work. Warning that the building presented a risk to the safety and health of occupants and the public, the report outlined nine serious risks to the building, due to a combination of factors, including:[19]
If repairs were not carried out it outlined as a worst-case scenario "The facility is damaged/contaminated beyond habitable use. Most items/assets are lost, destroyed or damaged beyond repair/restoration."[19]
The building underwent massive restoration and conservation work from December 2017 until August 2019, during which time the entire original Kildare House section was shielded from the elements under a temporary scaffold and plastic roof.[20] Granite fromGolden Hill quarry in County Wicklow was originally used in the construction of the Merrion Street side of the building in the 1740s, but was exhausted as a quarry by 1850. To ensure consistency in the type of granite used in the repairs, theOffice of Public Works opted for stone fromBallyknockan quarry, being the nearest geographical substitute.[20]
Media related toLeinster House at Wikimedia Commons53°20′26″N6°15′14″W / 53.34055°N 6.254021°W /53.34055; -6.254021
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