Council pushes forward plan for 20 new artist studios and a revived theatre on Merchant’s Quay

A pair of pigeons were huddled together on the roof of 9 Merchant’s Quay on Tuesday morning.

Four storeys below them, a half a dozen men and women stood around the entrance of number 8, zipped up in coats to avoid the cold, smoking and leaning against a steel cage that blocked off the green front door.

There was a similar cage outside 9, though neither of them had been there a year ago, images on Google Street View show.

Number 8 is a former Franciscan publication centre, Ray Yeates, Dublin City Council’s arts officer, told councillors at a meeting of the South Central Area Committee last Wednesday.

The council bought the building about three years ago, Yeates said. The rear is “the old St. Anthony’s Theatre, which was much loved within the community for many years”, he said.

Next door, meanwhile, “number 9 is a fully restored 18th-century townhouse”, Yeates said. It was occupied until around 2023, he said. 

For more than four years, the council has been working towards turning these properties into artist studios as part of a larger “creative campus” in the Liberties.

On Wednesday, Yeates told councillors at the area committee meeting that the council has started the pre-Part 8 planning process, through which the council will apply to itself for permission to redevelop these buildings as up to 20 artist workspaces.

If planning is secured, it is expected that construction could commence on 8 and 9 Merchant’s Quay next September, and that it’ll open in early 2028, Yeates said in a written report to the committee.

Rising costs, but still on track

The project to revitalise the Merchant’s Quay buildings came about in 2019 as a result of a wider feasibility study backed by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage’s Urban Regeneration and Development Fund, Yeates said at the meeting last week.

That study looked into several sites in the council’s administrative South Central Area, including one on Bridgefoot Street, just off Thomas Street.

That Bridgefoot Street site, however, has been dropped, with the property no longer available for cultural use, according to the minutes from the 3 November meeting of the Artist Workspace Committee, a subcommittee of the council’s arts strategic policy committee.

But the Merchant’s Quay project received a boost in 2023 when a private donor approached the city, offering matching funding to redevelop the two buildings, Yeates said. “This has become a part of the capital programme now.”

The cost for these works on Merchant’s Quay were originally projected at €6.5 million, he said, “but have been re-ordered now to €9.5 million, with increased funding from the private donor and the city as part of the capital programme.”

The council had previously done extensive consultation while they waited for funding, but now it needs to revive community consultation during this planning phase, Yeates’ report says, noting that it will be holding group consultations beginning in December.

The vision for the centre is to turn the two buildings into 20 artist workspaces, half of which would be “community-facing” and “socially engaged”, he said. “The theatre itself should be able to host everything from yoga classes to community meetings in the afternoon to a community or professional production in the evening.”

The council will probably hold an open-call to find a company with the skill-set required to run a complex arts and community organisation, once it’s built, Yeates told the meeting.

Ocean liner versus small yacht

Green Party Councillor Michael Pidgeon said he was curious about the size of St. Anthony’s Theatre, as it wasn’t too far away from the Rupert Guinness Theatre, another vacant venue.

The Rupert Guinness Theatre is just a kilometre away on Watling Street, and it wouldn’t be ideal if the two theatres would undermine each other, he said. “If, you know what I mean, if they’re operating, competing for similar funds or anything like that sort of thing.”

A 600-seat venue owned by Diageo, the Rupert Guinness Theatre has been used intermittently over the past 20 years.

Most recently, the company had loaned it to the National College of Art and Design to serve as a lecture hall.

But comparing the Rupert Guinness Theatre to St. Anthony’s would be like comparing an ocean liner to a small, well-founded yacht, Yeates said.

St. Anthony’s, inside 8 Merchant’s Quay, originally had a capacity of about 110 seats, he said, while Rupert Guinness was a flagship theatre. “It housed the Abbey Theatre for many years.”

Getting Rupert Guinness back up and running as a viable venue would require multiple millions, he said. “That just requires the same kind of feasibility journey that we’ve gone on, believe it or not, in 8–9 Merchant’s Quay.”

But Diageo may perhaps be looking to gift it to the state, he said. “And of course, the state will consider that very carefully as to what liability it may incur by receiving that gift, and would ask for those studies to be completed, and capitalisation to occur before we enter into a development phase.”

The possibility of giving the state this theatre as a gift has arisen in the last couple of months, Yeates said, speaking on Tuesday.

But a spokesperson for Diageo would not explicitly confirm this when asked on Friday.

The company wishes to see the Rupert Guinness Theatre restored as a cultural and community venue in Dublin 8, Diageo’s spokesperson said on Tuesday, and it continues to engage with “all relevant stakeholders to understand how this can best be achieved”.