In 1924, eight years after the Easter Rising, the Board (now Office) of Public Works began work on the shell of the General Post Office on O’Connell Street. With nothing but the external walls and famous facade remaining, the building, which had been completely refurbished just before its destruction by artillery fire in 1916, would be rebuilt again effectively from scratch.
Five years later and 13 years after the Rising, the president of the Irish Free State, WT Cosgrave, formally opened the reborn GPO, which now incorporated new features that included a shopping arcade linking Henry Street and Prince’s Street. The complex also contained the studios of 2RN, the Free State’s first radio station and the seed from which RTÉ would grow.
By contrast, in 1994 the Carlton cinema, 100m or so along O’Connell Street from the GPO, closed its doors for the last time. The site, which had held a cinema since before the Rising, remains vacant today, 30 years later.
If one were to conclude from this and other similar stories across north-central Dublin – the collapse of the Parnell Square cultural-quarter plan, the never-ending saga of the Abbey Theatre building, the disgraceful condition of Aldbrugh House – that modern politicians, speculators and city officials have inflicted more damage on the fabric of Dublin than a decade of revolutionary violence and British bombardment did, it would be hard to disagree. The wilful neglect and dereliction are not the sole cause of the social dislocation that manifested itself in last November’s riot, but they are certainly a contributing factor.
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As it happens, the GPO is in the news this week because it features among the recommendations presented to the Cabinet by the taskforce set up in the wake of that riot to address (yet again) the problems of north inner-city Dublin.
It has been reported that one recommendation is that the GPO, which is no longer the headquarters of An Post, should be repurposed as a “public building”. It’s not entirely clear what that might mean, but one proposal is apparently that RTÉ should relocate there from its current base in Donnybrook.
It might come as a surprise that an organisation which, even after the sale of land some years ago, still occupies a sprawling 24-acre campus 5km away, in Donnybrook, would be able to fit into what is essentially a 1920s office block. But it’s hardly a secret that RTÉ is downsizing. The direction of travel laid out by its director general, Kevin Bakhurst, implies further outsourcing of the sort of big entertainment shows that require large sound stages. The Fair City set is already marked for relocation.
From a technical point of view, the amount of floor space the broadcaster needs is likely to plummet, while it seems content to let Montrose landmarks such as the 1970s radio building slowly moulder. For audio at least, a return to the GPO (which RTÉ Radio only departed in 1974) seems feasible. After all, across the river at Marconi House, Bauer Media is capable of running four radio stations, including two national ones (Newstalk and Today FM), from a much more modest building.
The proposal is given added piquancy by the fact that the taskforce is chaired by An Post’s chief executive, David McRedmond, who narrowly lost out to Bakhurst for the RTÉ top job two years ago. Does the GPO idea give an insight into the more radical approach he would have taken if appointed director general?
Of all people, McRedmond should know whether the idea would logistically fly. Across the city, office blocks built in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s have been demolished. The main reason is that their floor-to-ceiling heights can’t accommodate the cabling and other services a modern business needs. Those requirements are even more essential for a media company. Kudos to the Board of Works if it foresaw all that in the 1920s.
In an article in this newspaper this week, the media analyst Mark Shiel decried the idea of a return to the GPO, arguing instead for a revitalisation and reimagining of Montrose. The downsizing plans, he argued, were misguided and RTÉ should instead be the linchpin of a “diversified Donnybrook Media District” along the lines of CBS Television City in Los Angeles, with studios and post-production facilities catering to in-house and independent productions. This, he argued, could be funded by capital investment of €1 billion drawn down from the Apple tax windfall.
It’s an interesting idea, but its grandiosity is unlikely to find favour with this Government or any successors. Realistically, the challenge for RTÉ is to define its public-service-media remit in more modest terms. A return, in part at least, to the GPO could form part of that while making a modest contribution to the revival of the north city centre.
