The current owner recently got planning permission to knock the old pub, and build 10 homes on the site.
There was a shooting at the Players Lounge pub on Fairview Strand when Karl Stanley's son was two, and it was burnt out when he was four, he says.
“My son is 18," said Stanley, a Social Democrats councillor for the area. "He's a college student, taller than me now, and the place has been just empty for his whole life."
So Stanley and other councillors for the North Central Area were pleased to learn the site was added to the Derelict Sites Register in April.
Which means the owner, which has changed over the years, faces an annual charge of seven percent of the property's market value.
Further, after several failed attempts – and an un-activated notice for a proposal that would have been exempted development – planning permission was recently granted to finally develop the site at 47/49 Fairview Strand in Dublin 3.
The pub, once associated with football, having a go at Queen Elizabeth II, and a series of violent incidents could now be replaced by a 10-home development.
The previous owner, Rita Markey, had applied in 2020 for planning permission for a larger development, with 17 homes, but in 2021 the council refused this.
In 2023, the company Rouvroy Limited bought the property. For €600,000, according to a notice on Daft.ie.
Rouvroy Limited is owned by Flogout Limited, the company that trades as the vacant-building development and finance platform Reunify.
Rouvroy now has permission to demolish the vacant former pub, and replace it with a new three-storey building facing Fairview Strand, containing three two-bedroom duplexes and two studio apartments.
Four two-storey, two-bedroom houses can be built at the rear, as well as a two-storey building facing Esmond Avenue with a bin and bicycle store at ground level and a one-bedroom apartment above.
The plans also include communal open space and associated landscaping, lighting, drainage, planting and boundary works.
The Players Lounge was formerly a well-known northside sports bar.
It was owned and operated by John Stokes, father of former Republic of Ireland and Celtic footballer Anthony Stokes.
The premises was the scene of a serious shooting in July 2010, when a gunman opened fire outside the pub. Three people – a doorman and two customers – were wounded.
Finglas man Wayne Barrett, who was working the door, suffered life-altering injuries after he was shot in the head and body, according to the Independent.
None of those injured were connected with the criminal dispute that was believed to have motivated the attack, the Independent reported in 2011.
Alan Wilson, who was named in court as a member of the Kinahan crime gang, was sentenced to 10 years for the attack, according to The Journal.
The Players Lounge attracted considerable attention again in March 2011 when John Stokes displayed a large banner officially barring Queen Elizabeth II from the pub during her state visit to Ireland in May that year, according to The Journal.
In August of that same year, the pub was extensively damaged in a suspicious fire following an armed robbery, according to RTÉ.
Four men entered the premises during the early hours, tied up a manager and stole approximately €50,000 before fires were started inside the building.
Nearby residents were evacuated while Dublin Fire Brigade brought the blaze under control.
The building never returned to its previous use and has remained vacant.
Dublin City Council added the property to its Derelict Sites Register in April 2026.
Sinn Féin Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha told a recent meeting of the North Central Area Committee that the long running Players Lounge saga “highlights the lack of powers of local authorities because property owners can sit on these properties for years and do nothing”.
“They basically have to be falling into the street on passers-by before the council can take action,” he said.
An attempt to get planning permission to redevelop the property was made in December 2020.
That application proposed demolishing the pub and constructing 17 apartments in three blocks ranging from three to five storeys.
The council refused permission in February 2021, identifying problems with the scale and design of the development.
Although the pub was not a protected structure, planners found that it contributed to the character and relatively consistent height of the Fairview Strand streetscape. The proposed replacement was considered harmful to that setting.
The council planners also raised serious concerns about privacy. Windows, balconies and elevated amenity areas would have overlooked neighbouring properties and other apartments within the development.
A fourth refusal reason concerned the proposed vehicle access. The surrounding laneway network was regarded as substandard, and planners concluded that the arrangements could create a traffic hazard.
In 2024, the owner twice notified Dublin City Council that it planned to convert the old pub into apartments by making use of the special process that sometimes allows property owners to convert from commercial to residential, without going through the normal planning process.
But, as is the case with many owners who have made these notifications, Rouvroy hasn't followed through and done the conversion.
Lois Kapila
As to why it took so long to put the Players Lounge site on the Derelict Sites Register, the council's executive manager for housing delivery, Ruth Dowling, told the North Central Area Committee in September that previous planning applications had held things up.
“Up till recently, we would have sort of given people a lot more leeway when there was planning,” she said. “We're not doing that anymore.”
“We are moving to put properties and anything on the register with a planning application because a grant of planning isn't going to guarantee that it will come out of dereliction,” Dowling said. “So, we have changed our tact with that.”
“Whereas before they were given a lot more leeway, and you'd be sort of going back every few months, and you're getting all sorts of stories and every excuse under the sun,” Dowling said. “So, we have tried to nip that in the bud, and we are moving quicker on them."
While a report to the North Central Area Committee at that September showed 11 sites in the area on the Derelict Sites Register, independent Councillor Kevin Breen said that figure is too low.
“Those figures are laughable and they’re unacceptable,” he said on Thursday.
“Anybody who walks around Dublin or the north side of Dublin for longer than 30 minutes can tell you there's a far greater number of derelict buildings than 11,” he said.
The recently successful application for 47/49 Fairview Strand, lodged in September 2025, is for 10 homes.
Instead of placing apartment blocks of up to five storeys behind the pub, the revised scheme provides four conventional two-storey houses.
The change substantially reduces the height and intensity of development beside existing homes.
Ciarán Lawlor said he has lived near the Players Lounge since 2019 and would like to see something done with the place, rather than it languishing in dereliction purgatory.
He had issues with the plan ultimately rejected in 2021, but said on Wednesday that he did not have the same concerns with the latest planning application, in terms of its scale.
“When you talk about demolition, I think that Fairview Strand has a lot of nice houses on it, when you look up and down the road," Lawlor said.
"There's a bit of character that could be maintained,” he said. “I'd hate to see that lost by something ultra-modern going in there, at least in terms of the façade.”
The published proposal contains no resident car-parking spaces. The council has stipulated that the development must be advertised as a zero-car-parking scheme whenever the homes are sold, rented or leased.
“You know, there's a concern about parking in the area,” said Lawlor. “Watch yourself looking down the road, and you can see people parking on the footpath the whole way along.”
“But I think, you know, if you're a resident in the area, you'd prefer to see the place used rather than derelict,” he said.
At least 17 secure long-term bicycle spaces are included in the plans, and a mobility-management strategy will be required to promote walking, cycling, public transport and car clubs.
The council sought further information from Rouvroy in November 2025. Revised documents were submitted in April 2026, and a positive decision was issued the following month. Final permission was granted on 12 June.
The permission contains conditions intended to preserve elements of the original building, to Lawlor’s satisfaction.
A conservation expert must supervise the demolition, while Victorian columns and a pillar, a stained-glass sash window and historic masonry – including rounded stones — must be salvaged, repaired and reused.
A detailed historic-building survey must also be completed before work begins.
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.
It depends, in part, on whether the owners can prove they've been holiday lets for more than seven years – and whether planning enforcement noticed.
The tender document for the design says the framework has a maximum estimated value of €7.5 million. It also gives a tentative construction estimate of €25 million.
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