[Leading Cork to take its place as a World Class City] __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
City Architects Restoration of Townhouses at 5-6 Shandon Street and John Philpott Curran Street, Cork During 2020 and 2021, Cork City Council led a team to restore a handsome pair of gable-fronted early 18th Century houses to accommodate six fully accessible apartment units for the elderly comprising of two one- bed units and four two-bed apartments. The project included a further three units on John Philpott Curran St, inserted into another derelict corner of the same urban block, providing a further three one-bed apartments. The steeply pitched roofs that face onto Shandon Street were once a common sight across the City but are now very rare. The context is unique, in that it is the only such corner site in the City. Cork has the largest surviving numbers of these Dutch-influenced houses in Ireland, located primarily in the Shandon Street area. On a national scale, when compared with Dublin, Limerick or Waterford, Cork has more original gabled houses than all the other Irish cities combined.
Located on Cork’s historic spine, the project demonstrates how four badly deteriorating but rare townhouses can be saved from dereliction via compulsory purchase by a Local Authority.
On 10th June 2021, the Irish Examiner published an article on the development, which included the following: The regeneration scheme in the shadow of the city’s landmark Shandon steeple, led by Cork City Council and hailed by An Taisce as a boost for the heritage, wellbeing, and economic attractiveness of the city, has breathed new life into an entire inner-city block. Local butcher James Nolan, who runs his business from a similar building, parts of which date to the early 1700s, said everyone involved deserves huge credit. "The easiest thing would have been to level them and just build new apartments, but Cork has loads of old buildings and we have to look after them. But that takes time and money," he said.
| 59
Powered by FlippingBook