Bank Architecture in Dublin, A History to c. 1940, by Dr Michael O'Neill

BA NK A RCH ITECTU RE IN D UBLIN A H ISTORY TO C. 1 94 0 Michael O’Neill Ph.D.

B ANK ARCHITECTURE IN DUBLIN A HISTO RY TO c.1940

Michael O’Neill Ph.D., F.S.A.

© Michael O’Neill, Bank Architecture in Dublin, a History to c.1940 First published 2011 by The Heritage Office Dublin City Council Civic Offices Wood Quay Dublin 8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher.

Typesetting, layout and design: Environmental Publications Front cover: Former National Bank Head Office, College Green. (Photo: M O’Neill) Back cover, far left: Allied Irish Bank, College Street/Westmoreland Street Mid left: Allied Irish Bank, Dame Street Middle top: Smiles Dental Spa, O’Connell Street Middle bottom: National Irish Bank, College Green Right top: National Irish Bank, O’Connell Street Middle right: National Irish Bank Bottom left and Middle top: Former Bank of Ireland (Smiles Dental Spa) Right bottom: Bank of Ireland, College Green Inside cover: Proposed National Bank, College Green, Dublin, section, Charles Geoghegan, c.1862, (80/32.I.1/3, Geoghegan Collection, Irish Architectural Archive).

ISBN: 978-1-902703-38-1

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TABLE O F CON TENTS

Acknowledgements

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Foreword

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Bank Architecture in Dublin, a History to c.1940

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The Architecture of the Banks

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Golden Age of Irish Bank Architecture

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Banking Halls

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Banking and Politics

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Bank Branches in Dublin up to 1915

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Bank Branches from 1915 to 1940

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1920s and 1930s

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Branch Bank Historic Interiors

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Conclusion

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Bibliography

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Documentary Sources for Further Research from the Irish Architectural Archive’s Dictionary of Irish Architects

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Architectural Synopsis

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ACKNOWLEDGE ME NTS

The survey of Bank Architecture in Dublin was carried out in 2007 by Richard McLoughlin and Des Byrne of Lotts Architecture and Urbanism with author Michael O’Neill, Mariam Allawerdi and Stephen Farrell. The survey is an action of the Dublin City Heritage Plan and part funded by the Heritage Council. This publication would not have been possible without the completion of this comprehensive survey.

After the buildings themselves, the most important sources of information are the invaluable drawing and photographic collections held in the Irish Architectural Archive. We are indebted to the Director and staff for permission to reproduce plans and elevations from the Archive collections.

The assistance of the banking institutions, bank managers and staff who kindly assisted the 2007 survey and this publication is gratefully appreciated. In particular we are grateful to Jeremy Clarke of the Bank of Ireland, College Green, who provided access on many occasions to photograph the interior and objects in the treasury exhibition, which are also included in this publication.

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FO REWORD

The banking industry is ever present in our lives, and today, probably more so than any other time in recent history, we are conscious of the global and local impact of the successes and failures of bank institutions. Perhaps less keenly appreciated is the significant contribution made by the banking industry to our material culture. Bank buildings, along with places of worship and the Victorian public house, are positioned prominently in the physical plan and social dynamic of life in the larger towns and cities of Ireland. They are the most significant manifestation of the cultural legacy of banking institutions, and a major element of our shared heritage.

Whether company headquarters, or branch banks, these buildings are designed to be noticed. Often dominating the historic urban environment, banks are usually positioned at prominent points – such as street corners or terminating vistas.

Designed not only to differentiate one institution from another in what the author refers to as a form of product differentiation, they are each imbued with stability and longevity. The bank buildings of the 19th century often transmit coded political allegiances that offer us a glimpse at the polemical social and political society of 19th century Ireland. This publication explores the development of a banking industry in Dublin from the 18th century, through its many booms and busts, amalgamations and bankruptcies. Central to this study is the emergence of a golden age in bank architecture from 1858-1879 when some of the finest Victorian edifices and interiors were erected in the city. Nowhere else is this more evident that

on the streetscapes of College Green and Dame Street which are today dominated by some of our finest examples of bank architecture. The conversion of the former Parliament House on College Green by the Bank of Ireland in the first decade of the 19th century precipitated the establishment of subsequent banking institutions in the area – away from Castle Street, which was the 18th century home of private banking in Dublin.

This publication arises from a comprehensive survey of bank buildings in Dublin city undertaken

by Lotts Architecture and Urbanism in 2007 as an action of the Dublin City Heritage Plan, which was part funded by the Heritage Council. Both the survey and publication emerge at a time when historic bank buildings are changing ownership at an unprecedented rate, opening a cycle of change and adaptation that has in some cases led to a loss of the very significance this book explores. The closure of important bank buildings on the aforementioned College Green and Dame Street, the historic commercial district and the spiritual home of 19th century banking in Dublin, has had an effect on the prevailing character of the place.

The survey found that of the 77 banks recorded, only 40 are still in use as bank branches, while the remaining are either in retail, office, public house/hotel o r educational use.

This publication limits the exploration and assessment of bank architecture to the administrative area of Dublin City Council and is not a survey of the whole of County Dublin.

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Royal Bank, Foster Place (now part of Trinity College Dublin), by George Geoghegan in 1858-9. Photograph by C. Duggan

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BANK ARCHITE CTURE IN DUB LIN, A HISTO RY TO c. 1 9 4 0

ank buildings are an important element in the urban streetscape, often colonising corners at major thoroughfares and having long street facades. College Green might be read as a veritable bank canyon: the south side comprising an almost continuous bank building frontage, drawn there by the presence of the Bank of Ireland in the historic former Parliament building. Bank buildings occupy major corners on the rebuilt O’Connell Street of the 1920s, on Baggot Street, Richmond Street, and in the expanding suburbs, where for example, Terenure cross roads was dominated by bank buildings. Together with churches and major insurance head-offices, bank buildings share an architectural monumentality (not always a function simply of scale), that make them instantly recognizable as financial institutions. Like churches, the architectural idioms employed suggested permanence, stability and longevity.

B

Like church buildings, bank architects also employed historicist styles. However Victorian eclecticism in architecture, an admixture of classicism, Ruskinian or Venetian Gothic and exquisite carving, followed by Edwardian baroque, Scottish baronial and trabeated (or stripped) classicism in the twentieth century, hiding the steel and concrete structure behind an historical façade, provided more variety to bank architecture. The modern movement, inheritors of the steel and concrete form, treated the exterior quite differently. Bank

building in the 1940s and 1950s had, however, reverted to a form of ‘Bankers’ Georgian, just as (Catholic) church architecture began to express the winds of change to be encapsulated in Vatican II. New head office buildings of the two major banks and the Central bank did in time respond to avant-garde architecture.

The interior functionality between church and bank was quite different, though employing many of the same materials – highly polished decorated floor tiles, polished brass fittings, carved hardwoods to doors and interior furnishings. Unlike churches, and the other coloniser of corner sites – the Victorian pub (with which banks shared the focus on the counter for operations), bank hall interiors required lightsome conditions for bank teller and customer respectively. The winds of change to his-

Royal Bank of Ireland at Terenure Cross Roads. By O'Callaghan & Webb, 1911.

Photo: NLI EAS_2035. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.

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Clerestory lighting of the banking hall in the Bank of Ireland, College Green.

Photograph by C. Duggan

toric (Catholic) church interiors post Vatican II was also mirrored in bank interiors – with the wholesale removal of historic interiors, initially to reflect a new relationship between teller and customer, more recently under the rubric of security.

The problem or necessity for brightly lit banking halls resulted in a number of solutions, including an entrance at the end bay of the façade, canted corner entrance bay with two major fenestrated elevations lighting the interior (Hibernian NIB, Munster and Leinster Dame Street), top-lit banking halls (National Bank), taking their cue from the iron and glass structures of the Victorian rail-

way station, and clerestory lighting (Bank of Ireland College Green and Royal Bank Foster Place). In the larger banking halls, particularly those associated with a head-office, two main counter plans obtained, that initiated by Johnston in the Bank of Ireland, where the customers occupied the centre of the hall and the tellers behind counters parallel to the walls. Another solution, used by Charles Geoghegan at Foster Place and at the National Bank headquarters, was a horse-shoe shaped counter plan, with the customers circulating outside, and the bank staff in the centre.

Polished hardwood desks and tables, elaborate clocks and marble fireplaces also decorated the in-

B A N K A RC H I T E C T U R E

terior. Bank buildings were often provided with impressive entrance lobby areas, to keep the interior free from draughts and to further reassure the bank customer of continuity and stability. Head office buildings also had board rooms, managers’ and directors’ rooms and offices. Other features of banks, and particularly head-office branches, were the requirements for strong rooms, fire-proof and secure basements and safes. The architectural solutions arrived at with regard to lighting the banking hall and the disposition of other offices and often accommodation for the manager and his family, were developed over time. Bank architecture developed from the era of private banking.

Several of the banks have extended their premises, and some long facades were originally considerably shorter – Hibernian (now NIB), College Green, M&L (now AIB) Dame St, Newcomen Bank (Rates Office), AIB Upper O’Connell St, and their corner site impact is thus somewhat diminished.

The corner occupying banks at the junction of Abbey Street and O’Connell Street are successful compositions at carrying the façade around the corner through a canted bay. These buildings (Permanent TSB and The Central Bar), with their tiny crowning campaniles and tempietto provide instant landmarks. These buildings are integrated in a re-built street with pre-ordained cornice height, the impact of corner bank locations, built of cut stone in deliberately historical styles must have been significant interventions in the later Georgian streetscapes of red brick and ashlar detailing. A glance at Shaw’s directory and street guide indicates the milieu into which these commercial signifiers were placed.

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Foyer of Ulster Bank, College Green. By Thomas Drew in 1888-91. Note the coffered barrel vault, recalling perhaps Goeghegan's original design for the cash office of the former National Bank, College Green, or the transverse vestibule in William G. Murray's Provincial Bank, College Street.

Below: Tempietto crowning former AIB (now the Central Bar), O'Connell Street.

Photographs by C. Duggan

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HISTORICAL IN TRO DUCTION: THE E IGHTEE NTH AND E ARLY N IN E TE E N TH CE N TURY

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Bank of Ireland Token, 1804.

Six shillings Courtesy of the Bank of Ireland

rish banking can be traced back to the 1680s, when currency notes were introduced in Ireland alongside the circulation of coins. Initially, the currency notes took the form of receipts issued by goldsmiths, coin exchangers and merchants located in Dublin and other major ports, who acted as managers and custodians of coins on behalf of their owners or savers. It was the emergence of the practice of making payments by transfer of the goldsmiths’ receipts (rather than withdrawing the coins themselves) that conferred the status of money, or medium of exchange, on their receipts and led to them being described as currency notes.

An Act of the Irish Parliament of 1708 stated that notes issued by any Banker, Goldsmith, Merchant or Trader should be assignable or transferable by delivery or endorsement. Apart from the custodial features of early banking, it was recognized in the early eighteenth century that the custodians of gold coins and valuables also had the ability to engage in lending. They could lend provided they retained the confidence of those who deposited the gold coins with them.1 The purpose of banking in a pre-industrial economy was not to provide capital for major enter-

prises, but to facilitate the transfer of clients’ money from one location to another. Thus early eighteenth-century banking usually developed out of some other occupation that gave the bankers access to credit in another location.2 A particularly successful early eighteenth-century merchant turned banker was David Digges La Touche. He had settled in Dublin as a Williamite veteran and became a cloth dealer and wholesale merchant, diversifying in 1716 into banking with three others in the cloth trade, the leading partner being Nathaniel Kane. This eventually became La Touche bank and it remained strictly a family enterprise for five generations and 154 years, before being absorbed by the Munster bank in 1870.3 This banking business, which in its early years was not unlike that of other Dublin merchant banks, consisted of the discounting and transmitting of bills of exchange and the issuing of bank notes – in other words, moving the monies of long-distance traders and landlords and providing shortterm wholesale credit facilities.

As the self-confidence of the goldsmiths and merchant banks grew and their lending began to ex-

1 Padraig McGowan, Money and Banking in Ireland (Dublin 1990), 7-8.

2 Edith Mary Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament 1692-1800 Vol 1 (Belfast 2002), 389.

3 David Dickson and Richard English, ‘The La Touche Dynasty’, in David Dickson, ed., The Gorgeous Mask Dublin 17001850 (Dublin 1987), 17-29, at 17-18.

H ISTORICAL I NTRODUCTION: T HE E IGHTEENTH AND E ARLY N INETEENTH C ENTURY

ceed their holdings of gold coin, they became engaged in creating credit, that is, adding to the overall supply of means of payments or money in circulation. The evolution of this practice helped to finance investment and maintain the level of spending. However, it also exposed the economy and society to the risks of excessive credit creation and the collapse of banking institutions. The collapse of a bank could easily arise as a result of the rapid conversion of currency notes into gold coins.

The failure of a bank could also arise as a result of imprudent lending that could not be recovered, thereby resulting in the writing off of the bank’s capital and the erosion of its capacity to repay its deposits in full.

The leading early eighteenth-century Dublin bank was known as ‘Burton’s Bank’ carried on business at Castle Street. The bank crashed in 1733 highlighting the liability of a banker’s estate for the bank’s debts. This gave rise to winding-up procedures lasting nearly a quarter of a century. Primate Boulter (Archbishop of Armagh) and one of the bank’s creditors compared the impact of this debacle to that of the South Sea Bubble (1720), writing that ‘it had very nearly overturned all our paper credit here… and at the same time we have so little specie here that without paper credit our trade cannot be carried on, nor our rents paid’.4 Shortage of specie encouraged the issuing of paper until the middle of the century, when there was a series of bank failures.

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Hugh Boulter, Archbishop of Armagh, by Francis Bindon.

Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London

Following the dissipation of the Jacobite threat of 1745 and in the years following the peace of Aix-laChapelle in 1748, there was a wave of unprecedented prosperity, and by the 1750s Dublin had eight banks. The boom ended in the major financial crisis of 1754-5, triggered by the failure of the Rotterdam correspondent of the Dillon and Ferrall bank. The second firm to fail was that of Willcox and Dawson and the third failure was Lennox and French. This situation gave rise to legislation in the Irish Parliament in 1756 that excluded merchants involved in foreign trade from engaging in the business of banking. Legislation also restricted private banks to not more than six partners. This legislation, by a parliament of landholders,5 not only

4 Johnston-Liik, ibid., 392 quoting PRO SP63/397 ff. 58-9, Boulter to Newcastle, 25 Feb. 1733-4.

5 L.M. Cullen, ‘Germination and Growth’, in Bernard Share ed., Root and Branch Allied Irish Banks Yesterday, today, tomorrow (Dublin 1979), 23-60 at 25.

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later eighteenth-century activity of La Touche bank where they catered specifically for the needs of the landed clientele and seem at the same time to have contracted their mercantile business.

Portrait of Dean Swift

by Francis Bindon, 1739, in St Patrick's deanery. The frame was carved by John Houghton. By kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of St Patrick's Cathedral

upset the delicate balance between cash flow and credit, but also removed the commercial infrastructure that facilitated the transfer of money.

There was a further run on the city banks in 175960. The last expansionary phase of private banking in Ireland occurred during the Napoleonic wars.

The La Touche bank, mentioned above, had its reputation enhanced by its success in weathering the double bank failure of 1754 and the run on the Dublin banks some five years later. The other bank to survive these crises untarnished was the Gleadowe’s (later Newcomen’s) bank. Both banking houses had substantial buildings on Castle Street, and will be discussed below. The legislative influence of the landlord class is reflected in the

Most national or central banks were established or evolved because of the financial needs of the state, especially in times of war. The Bank of England was established in 1694 and the Bank of Scotland in 1695. The ban on joint-stock banking partnerships, introduced in 1708, was an attempt to increase the stability of the Bank of England. The Bank of England competed with the South Sea Company for Government business in the early years and with private banks throughout the eighteenth century. The situation in Scotland evolved very differently. The chartered Bank of Scotland surrendered its monopoly of joint-stock banking twenty-one years after its establishment in 1695.

Two other chartered banks had been founded – the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1727 and the British Linen Bank in 1746 – and seventy-two other banks were set up by 1815. Most of these were joint-stock companies, but there were a few private banks in Edinburgh. Inter-bank relations were generally good, and failures rare.6 In the early nineteenthcentury it was to the ‘Scotch system’ that the London based parliament would turn to solve the banking crises in both England and Ireland.

There was no appetite in Ireland for an equivalent Bank of Ireland at the end of the seventeenth century. There was an unsuccessful attempt to create one in 1719, bitterly opposed by Dean Jonathan

6 John Booker, Temples of Mammon. The Architecture of Banking (Edinburgh 1990), 38.

H ISTORICAL I NTRODUCTION: T HE E IGHTEENTH AND E ARLY N INETEENTH C ENTURY

Swift who also objected to the minting of Wood’s half-pence in The Drapier’s Letters. Some sixty years later, exchequer crises, the new patriotic atmosphere of Grattan’s Parliament, impending independence from Westminster, and the economic consequences of the American war, led to the founding of an Irish version of the Bank of England in 1783. The new institution was intended in effect to be banker to the government, manager of the national debt, and the main source for the issue of bank-notes. The Act of incorporation also stipulated that no other corporation or partnership, exceeding six in number, could issue notes payable on demand or for any period less than six months.

It was given a virtual monopoly on the right to issue bank notes throughout the country. As Hall noted in his 1948 study, the ‘monopoly clause’ did not cause any hardship at the time that the Act was passed, but the Bank of Ireland’s monopoly later became one of the most controversial subjects in the development of banking in Ireland.7 Private banking in Ireland had one last period of growth during the Napoleonic Wars. The drain of gold in 1797 led to the Bank Restriction Act which freed the Bank of Ireland from paying its notes in gold for what would prove to be a quarter of a century. Irish exports rose by 120 percent in value between 1792 and 1815. Paper currency thus became increasingly necessary, private banks grew rapidly, with the appearance of banks in many inland towns and smaller ports where no banks had previously existed. Wartime inflation was sharper in

7 F.G. Hall, The Bank of Ireland 1783-1946 (Dublin 1949), 37.

8 Cullen, ibid., 27.

9 Cullen, ibid., 27.

Ireland, a net exporter, than in England, which was on a war footing. Instability in prices included sharp falls in 1809 and 1814. The widespread failures of banks in 1820 following the agrarian collapse of 1819, were mainly in the south of the country where the rise in prices had been sharpest in the war years. Depression in Britain in 1820 inevitably affected the Irish economy.8 By 1822 Ireland had lost half its private banks, perhaps as many as twenty. Economic recovery was rapid in the 1820s and 1830s. A strong regional centre around Belfast emerged, and perhaps a regional economy around Cork. Bank notes were now a necessity, as the static supply of gold could not deal with the expanding volume of production and trade without even more severe deflation.9 The need to open up entry into banking and to provide competitive banking services throughout the country was emphasised to government authorities by Belfast business interests. The third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century saw the unpicking of the Bank of Ireland monopoly, the arrival of joint-stock banking companies and the creation of branch banking. An Act of 1821 legislated for banking firms with as many partners as would be allowed to commence business outside a fifty mile radius of Dublin. Thus the virtual monopoly of Irish public banking by the Bank of Ireland was cut into by the arrival of joint-stock companies with the right to issue notes, albeit outside the Dublin area. In essence the Scottish model rather than the English model of banking was now put in

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place. There were still however severe restrictions in place with regard to residence of joint-stock partners and multiple signatures on each note issued.

would be formed to take over Montgomery’s bank as a going concern as the Northern Banking Company.

In 1824 there were further assaults on the monopoly position of the Bank of Ireland. A group of Belfast merchants petitioned for the withdrawal of the disabilities preventing them from establishing a joint-stock company in the north; a group of Catholic merchants in Dublin petitioned similarly, with the added aims of the right of note-issue within a fifty-mile radius and also perhaps the right to establish branches close to Dublin; and a group of London capitalists, supported by leading Whigs and Tories, proposed a branch bank system after the Scottish pattern, again to be free from the existing restraints. The distinctive feature of joint stock banks was their large number of reasonably dispersed wealthy shareholders with unlimited liability. Bank customers, therefore, developed a high degree of confidence in joint stock banks, as had been the case in Scotland. The Northern, Hibernian and Provincial Banks were the outcomes of the respective petitions of 1824.

The Hibernian Bank, was originally known as the ‘Hibernian Joint-Stock and Annuity Company’.

Daniel O’Connell was a stakeholder and one of the bank promoters. This concern was promoted by a group of Catholics and Quakers, who were still excluded from the direction of the Bank of Ireland.

The Hibernian’s original premises were at 81 Marlborough Street. In 1831 it moved to the Newcomen Bank building in Castle Street, purchased in the Newcomen bankruptcy. The Hibernian decided that it would restrict its business to Dublin – thus unable to issue notes and open branches.

One week after the Irish Banking Act became law, it was announced in Belfast that a joint-stock bank Insignia of the Hibernian Bank from the NIB, College Green.

Photograph by S. Farrell.

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Thomas Japlin was one of England’s greatest disciples of joint-stock banking and one of the fiercest opponents of the Bank of England monopoly.

Inspired by the Scottish banking system, with strong Scottish backing, and a head office in London, his first success was the Provincial Bank of Ireland. The first branch of the bank was opened in Cork on the 1 Sept 1825. Each branch of the Provincial had a manager, an accountant and a board of directors. The Provincial was thus the pioneer of branch banking in Ireland. By 1845 they had 37 branches throughout the country.

The last remaining private banks in Belfast were the Belfast Bank and the Commercial Bank. In the summer of 1827 these banks merged to form the Belfast Banking Company.

H ISTORICAL I NTRODUCTION: T HE E IGHTEENTH AND E ARLY N INETEENTH C ENTURY

The National Bank of Ireland was founded by Lamie Murray in 1834. The scheme was that each bank would be a subsidiary company whose shareholders would subscribe half the capital and the other half by the parent company – it was difficult to manage and many subsidiary companies quickly merged with the parent. The National opened the Metropolitan Bank of Dublin, to complete for some Dublin clients. The success of this bank was partly due to its support by Daniel O’Connell and the Repeal Party. The National Bank also established a significant presence in England, both among the larger Irish communities as well as in London where its head office was located; it was admitted to the prestigious London Clearing Banks Committee in the 1850s. It was an attempt by the National Bank to set up a Belfast National Bank of Ireland that resulted in the establishment of the Ulster Banking Company which opened 1 July 1836.

(1836), where the bulk of the capital came from shareholders and where the banks served a wellidentified local need. Munster did not acquire its own distinctive bank until the founding of the Munster in 1864, absorbing the La Touche banking dynasty in 1870, and taken over by the Munster and Leinster in 1885. The second category was banks with their head office in London. The National and Provincial were in this category explained in part by the monopoly of banking with more than six partners retained for a radius of fifty Irish miles from Dublin by the Bank of Ireland under the 1821 Act. Such banks could issue notes and operate branches beyond a fifty mile radius from Dublin. The third category consisted of banks which chose not to issue notes and were free in consequence to conduct a banking business within the Bank of Ireland monopoly area. The two banks in this category were the Hibernian (1825), and the Royal (1836). 10

The Royal Bank of Ireland, with the support of the Quakers, took over the firm of Robert Shaw and Company and their premises at 4 Foster Place (April 1836), and opened for business 26 September 1836. The London and Dublin Bank planned to operate in Dublin. This bank however had a short life being absorbed by the National in 1848.

The Bank of Ireland’s charter ran out in 1838, but renewed from year to year down to 1845, by which time the English Bank Charter Act of 1844 enforced some fundamental changes in the Irish system. The essential purpose of this statute was the control of note-issue. The Bankers (Ireland) Act of 1845 withdrew the Bank’s monopoly within the fifty-mile radius, and permitted the Irish banks which already issued notes to continue to do so at their 1844-5 levels. The Bank of Ireland successfully resisted attempts to permit public funds to be paid into any bank in Ireland, and to allow the unlucky Dublin-based Hibernian and Royal Banks to join in note issuing.

In summary then, the seven banks which were to constitute the Irish banking system until the mergers in the 1960s all developed in the short period between 1824 and 1836. Three distinct types of bank emerged. The first were regional banks: Northern (1824), the Belfast (1827) and the Ulster 10 Cullen, ibid., 31.

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Insignia from the Munster & Leinster Bank, Dame Street, Dublin 2

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THE ARCHITE CTURE O F THE B AN KS

B The La Touche Bank on Castle Street.

Demolished in 1946.

Possibly by Joseph Jarrett. 1750s, single bay wings by Richard Morrison 1802-3. Elevation drawing from Frederick O’Dwyer, Lost Dublin

ranch bank architecture in Dublin is mainly a phenomenon of the mid-nineteenth-century onwards. Prior to mid-century there were few purpose-built banks. Before legislation enabling joint-stock banking companies, branch banking did not arise, and in the case of Dublin, the Bank of Ireland had a monopoly zone of a fifty mile radius around the city until 1845. This did not preclude head-office buildings in Dublin. The beginning of branch bank architecture in Dublin, in reality not commencing until 1853, initially involved the conversion and extension of existing head-office buildings to accommodate branch services.

Eighteenth Century Banks in Dublin Prior to the period of branch banking and deliberately impressive head-office architectural activity by joint stock companies in the former monopoly zone, a number of earlier developments were to prove influential. Two eighteenth-century private banks were located on Castle Street, the La Touche bank dating from 1726 and the Newcomen Bank built in 1781.

The elevation of the La Touche bank, demolished in 1946, was originally a five-bay, four-storey brick building with a rusticated granite ground floor, erected in the 1730s and possibly rebuilt in the 1750s to a design later claimed by Joseph Jarratt.1 Maurice Craig has suggested that it might be the work of Edward Lovett Pearce. Built over two levels of basement with round-headed windows to the ground floor, it is likely that it served initially as both a bank and a private house. The rusticated ground floor had the useful effect of marking a division between place of business and dwellinghouse on the upper floors, a formula used in the Taylor designed banking house at 70 Lombard Street London in the 1750s.2 In 1802-3 Richard Morrison added symmetrical single-bay, three storey wings to either side, carrying the rustication

1 Elevation, signed 'Joseph Jarratt. Archt. & Del' in Jarratt album, IAA, Acc. 84/51; N. Sheaff, 'Jarratt and Rococo', Irish Arts Review I, no. 3 (Autumn, 1984), 51.

2 A point made by Booker in his discussion of the Sir Charles Taylor designed banking-house at 70 Lombard Street London for Sir Charles Asgill in the 1750s. see Booker, Temples of Mammon, 7 and Pl. 2.

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BANKS

Venus and Cupid stuccowork ceiling by Bartholomew Cramillion, 1750s. Now in the Bank of Ireland College Street.

Photograph by C. Duggan Right: The La Touche Bank on Castle Street. Demolished in 1946. Photograph reproduced from Frederick O’Dwyer, Lost Dublin.

across the ground floor.3 The building was partially demolished in 1945. The Venus and Cupid stuccowork ceiling by Bartholomew Cramillion, was removed to the Directors’ luncheon room in the Bank of Ireland College Green.4 Rusticated stonework from the ground-floor façade dismantled in 1986, was incorporated in the garden wall of the conference centre in Dublin Castle.

The elegant ceiling from the upper floor reception room of the La Touche bank perhaps evoked the response of the tall Portland stone block of delicate late eighteenth century Adamesque character of the Newcomen bank located opposite. It was built

by Thomas Ivory in 1781 as a bank and private dwelling for Sir William Gleadowe Newenham on the corner of Castle St and Cork Hill. It originally had two formal three-bay facades, each with a central round-headed entrance flanked by windows.

The Cork Hill elevation was doubled in length by William Caldbeck in 1856-7, and the porch introduced to mediate between the original and repro-

3 Edward McParland, Alistair Rowan and Ann Martha Rowan, The Architecture of Richard Morrison and William Vitruvius Morrison (Dublin 1989), 77.

4 Joseph McDonnell, Irish Eighteenth-Century Stuccowork and its European Sources (Dublin 1991), 21 and Pls 71-3.

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Below: Newcomen Bank, c.1781. Built

by Thomas Ivory.

The private bank was taken over by the Hibernian in 1831.

William Caldbeck doubled the Cork Hill elevation and added the porch in 1858-62.

Photograph by C. Duggan

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Below right: Detail of the Waldré ceiling in the Oval Room, Newcomen Bank.

Photograph by C. Duggan.

duced facades. Portland stone, rusticated on the ground floor and the finest quality unmodulated ashlar on the upper storeys with horizontal bands of carving, is used throughout.

Below: Newcomen Bank. First floor Plan prior to extension. Plan from D. Guinness, Georgian Dublin

La Touche and Newcomen Banks on Castle St., from Gentleman’s Magazine, Dec. 1788.

In the eighteenth century it gave rise to the conundrum: Why is Castle St. like a river?

Because there were banks on both sides!

Cork Hill. The Newcomen Bank at the corner of Cork Hill and Castle Street. The La Touche Bank faced it on Castle Street.

From Henry Shaw, The Dublin Pictorial Guide and Directory of 1850

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As a private banking house it is likely that the most elaborate interior – the first floor oval room facing Cork Hill was Newcomen’s principal bank parlour approached from a large top-lit open-well stair hall. The ceiling is a trompe l’oeil sky with putti bearing flower baskets and wreaths attributed to Vincent Waldré. On the ground floor to the right of the Castle Street entrance door was a large threebay vaulted public office also formerly entered directly from Cork Hill. Built as a private banking house, it is a unique survival in Dublin. Two attributes of the building may point towards later developments. The use of rustication on the ground floor, perhaps demarking office from residential use, and secondly, an early example of a bank premises exploiting a corner site. The Newcomen bank was taken over by the Hibernian bank in 1831 and in the 1858-62 period doubled in size to create a new banking hall on the ground floor. Caldbeck’s doubling of the Cork Hill façade is an early example of a phenomenon of lengthening corner sited banks – done by the Hibernian (now NIB) on College Green and by the Munster and Leinster (AIB Dame Street). In each case it dilutes the urban impact of a corner-sited bank.

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The south and east elevations of the former Newcomen Bank, by Thomas Ivory (1781), with extension to east elevation by William Caldbeck (1856-57), now the Dublin City Council Rates Office.

Photograph by C. Duggan

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Bank of Ireland, College Green.

Parliament Building

by Edward Lovett Pearce, 1729-1739.

Completed by Arthur Dobbs after Pearce’s death in 1733. Foster Place entrance to House of Commons, screen wall and portico for House of Lords by James Gandon between 1782-89.

Photograph by C. Duggan

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The engaged Ionic columns and entablature in the cash hall in the Bank of Ireland, College Green. Photograph

by M. O’Neill Below: The carved lion heads of the mahogany counter.

Photograph by M. O’Neill

Adaptation of the Parliament House for the Bank of Ireland The Bank of Ireland, founded in 1783, had its first premises on Mary Street which soon proved too small, and following abortive plans to relocate on Essex Street and Westmoreland Street, acquired the recently vacated Houses of Parliament on College Green in 1802.5 In 1799 the Bank of Ireland had commissioned Sir John Soane to produce designs for a new bank at the junction of Westmoreland Street and College Street. Following the Act of Union and the pur-

chase of the former parliament building, Francis Johnston was employed by the Bank of Ireland to convert the Parliament buildings into a bank headquarters including the incorporation of a suitably impressive cash office. The solution arrived at by Johnston and indeed variant un-executed schemes by him not only anticipated but solved many of the problems of planning, layout and lighting of large banking halls and ancillary offices. The space between the House of Commons (divided into offices by Johnston) and the portico was extended slightly to the east to become the banking hall.

5 C.P. Curran, ‘The Architecture of the Bank of Ireland’ Part II 1800-1946 in F.G. Hall, The Bank of Ireland 1783-1946 (Dublin 1949), 455-471; Edward McParland, ‘The Bank and the Visual Arts’, in F.S.L. Lyons ed., Bank of Ireland 1783-1983 (Dublin 1983), 97-139.

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any of theirs’.6 Clerestory windows on four sides, those facing Pearce’s portico are mirrored glass to avoid being duller than those on other three sides.

Sitting on the rim of the rectangular coved drum are lantern windows with the flat coffered ceiling seemingly floating above. The Soanean influence is equally evident in the Governor’s Office.

The completeness of the design is enhanced by the consistency of the details. The heavy mahogany counters and islands in the middle of the floor share the lion heads and draperies of the lantern mullions, the panels in the window reveals are repeated on the desk fronts (and on the exterior doors), the key pattern of the ceiling ribs is repeated in a ‘frieze’ beneath the high level windows.

The decoration of the banking hall, executed in Bath and Portland stone, the lively naturalness of the plasterwork in deep relief and the suggestion of structural function in the ribs of the cove and flat ceiling and the mullion pilasters is a departure from the stylised decoration of the late eighteenth century.

The Soane-influenced groin vaulted ceiling of the Governor's Office by Francis Johnston, Bank of Ireland, College Green. Photograph

by C. Duggan

The walls of the cash office are articulated with engaged Ionic columns on high pedestals, related to a similar arrangement in Pearce’s House of Lords, as does the rectangular ceiling design. Soanean influence is never far away either. He urged that the cash office walls be lined with stone rather than plaster, ‘The new offices of the Bank of England are finished in this manner and I should wish to have it in my power to have our principal office as handsome as 6 Quoted in Curran, 462.

In a sense the game was over before it started, the Bank of Ireland had acquired and adapted the Parliament House to provide themselves with the most impressive headquarter complex with a wonderful top-lit banking hall. The boardroom and Governor’s Office show the influence of the Bank of England, and are taken from Soane’s Governor’s room. In mid-century when Charles Geoghegan, William Caldbeck, and William Murray were required to add impressive cash of-

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Bank of Ireland College Green.

Banking Hall. Cash office built on site of entrance hall and ante-room of House of Commons by Francis Johnston, 1803-08.

Photograph by M. O’Neill

fices to the Royal Bank in Foster Place, The National Bank on College Green and extend the cash office in the Newcomen (by now the Hibernian) bank, and the Provincial Bank on College Street respectively, newer materials such as cast-iron in architectural quantities (for columns and joists etc) were available, but the disposition of the spaces had been anticipated by Johnston.

Right: Bank of Ireland, College Green. Coffered ceiling of Banking Hall. Cash office built on site of entrance hall and ante-room of House of Commons by Francis Johnston, 180308. Photograph by M. O’Neill

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Right: National Bank, College Green, Dublin, ground floor and basement plans, Charles Geoghegan, c.1862, (80/32.I.1/7, Geoghegan Collection, Irish Architectural Archive).

Banking Act of 1824

Below: The National Bank, College Green in 1850. Designed by William Barnes in 1842, the supervising architect was Isaac Farrell.

From The Dublin Pictorial Guide and Directory of 1850

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In the event direct architectural rivalry in terms of head-office institution with an integrated banking hall to rival that of Johnston at College Green was delayed for some forty years. This period saw the legislation enacted for joint-stock banking companies with unlimited partners, the rise in bank branch architectural competition outside Dublin and, after 1845, the relaxation of the Bank of Ireland monopoly zone around Dublin.

In the years before the relaxing of the Bank of Ireland monopoly, several of the joint-stock companies set up head-offices in Dublin, the Provincial in William Street, the Hibernian in the Newcomen Bank building on Cork Hill, the Royal Bank in Foster Place, and the purpose-built National Bank on College Green.

Bank headquarters around College Green The National Bank on College Green, the first purpose built head-office in Dublin, was built in 1842

by William Barnes, an English born architect, with Isaac Farrell as supervising architect. An early example of the Italian palazzo style in Irish bank architecture, it has a five-bay three storey granite

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palazzo façade with single-bay two-and-a-half storey wings screening yards on each side.

Influenced by the Commercial Buildings on Dame Street by Edward Parke, built in 1796-9, but also interestingly reminiscent of the La Touche bank façade on Castle Street. A more up-to-date source for the design may have been that of Charles Parker’s bank for Hoare & Co., Fleet Street, London, built 1829-30. Parker published Villa Rustica between 1832 and 1841, one of the principal sources for the Italianate architecture of the early Victorian period. The front was altered by Geoghegan between 1888-90, embellishing it with a cast-iron balcony at piano nobile level, and enhancing the cornice with a balustrade and statuary. The Celtic Revival figure of Hibernia was added to the parapet as an expression of the institution’s patriotic leanings. Founded in 1834, the National Bank’s success was partly due to the support of Daniel O’Connell and the Repeal Party.

Isaac Farrell had built the Savings Bank on Abbey Street Lower in 1839. Built in a severe Italianate style in granite, it is a two-storey five-bay block with flanking single-storey carriage arches. The ground floor is treated with channelled masonry, the advanced end bays flank two Doric columns in antis screening a recessed porch. In contrast there is plain ashlar treatment of the upper storey, the tall windows have raised architraves and bracketed entablatures. Italianate with Greek revival el-

Top right: National Bank College Green, 1842. Front altered

by Geoghegan 1899-90, embellishing it with a cast-iron balcony at piano nobile level, and enhancing the cornice with a balustrade and statuary. The Celtic Revival figure of Hibernia was added to the parapet as an expression of the institution’s patriotic leanings. Photograph by C. Duggan

Above: Dublin Savings Bank, Lower Abbey Street. Now Irish Life International

By Isaac Farrell in 1839. Photograph by C. Duggan

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Cochere by George Papworth had been added c.1840. Over the Porte-Cochere is an applied Ionic temple front with an attic course and ballustraded parapet, perhaps echoing that of the former House of Commons entrance to the Parliament Building.

Papworth may also have been responsible for the application of stucco to the upper storeys to form an eleven-bay palazzo-style elevation. The palmette-enriched cast-iron piano nobile balcony was also added. Here the adaptation of features of the Italian palazzo to English and Irish architecture – first displayed by Charles Barry at the Travellers’ Club at Pall Mall, London, is evident. The style provided an acceptable alternative to the extremes of Greek and Gothic hitherto offered to prospective builders. Buildings based on the Palazzo Farnese at Rome and the Palazzo Pandolfini at Florence became especially popular. Such influences were later overtaken by those drawn from a wider Italian inspiration, particularly from Venice.

Foster Place, former Royal Bank later Allied Irish Bank. Part of Daly’s Club House, 1789-90 by Richard Johnston. Greek Revival style Porte-Cochere by George Papworth c1840. He may also be responsible for the applied temple front and the use of stucco to the upper storeys to form an eleven-bay palazzo-style elevation.

Photograph by C. Duggan

ements at the Savings Bank and more clearly Italianate palazzo at College Green, both these buildings profoundly influenced William Caldbeck’s bank branch architecture, the architect employed by the National Bank.7 The Dublin based Shaw’s Bank, which later became the Royal Bank, moved to No. 3 Foster Place, purchased from the United Services Club for £3,500 in 1846. The Greek Revival style Porte-

Another Dublin based bank, the Hibernian, had taken over the business and premises of the Newcomen Bank in Castle Street in 1831. However, as the focus of the city had shifted eastwards by the end of the eighteenth century, as the Bank of Ireland had recognized in their choice of the former Parliament House, banking had now begun to follow, with the head-offices of two rivals, the Royal and National banks, located beside and across from the Bank of Ireland headquarters. Over the next number of decades the location of head-offices with banking halls on College Street, College Green and Dame Street would become de rigeur.

7 William Caldbeck’s bank style is recognizable all over the country: at Custom House Quay, Wexford; The Quay, New Ross; Headfort Place Kells; Moate; Dominick Street, Mullingar; Castle Street, Roscrea; Crowe Street, Dundalk; to name but a few.

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he golden age of branch banking in Ireland was between 1858 and 1879. In 1850 there were 165 branch banks set up by the various banking firms throughout the country, by 1858 the number had risen only to 180.

However during the twenty-year golden age the total of branch bank numbers in Ireland rose from 180 to 415, an extraordinary increase, reflecting a vibrant economy and intense inter-bank rivalry.

One weapon in the arsenal employed by the jointstock companies in competition was architectural, as was made explicit by the Irish Builder in 1868 in relation to Armagh: ‘The Belfast and the Northern Banks have both expended large sums beautifying the town, and we do not see why the Provincial should be content with its present mean office’.1 In Dublin the removal of the Bank of Ireland’s monopoly in 1845 did not see an immediate increase in bank building activity, due surely in part to the devastating effects of the Great Famine on economic activity. However by the early 1860s the upward trajectory in bank building country-wide was also reflected in Dublin. The joint-stock bank companies either extended their existing premises to incorporate impressive banking halls –

National, Royal (both on College Green) and Hibernian (Castle Street), or embarked on new head office buildings incorporating banking halls from the start – the Provincial (College Street), the Union/Hibernian (College Green, now NIB) and the Munster (Dame Street). The Irish Builder in 1862 reported on this increase in activity: There is quite a stir – and admittedly for the better – across the banking establishment in the city, to ensure increased accommodation, and with more architectural effect than was hitherto the custom or the desire of the respective directories. Somewhat recently we noted the improvements at the Hibernian Bank in Castle Street (Mr. Caldbeck, architect), also those at the Royal Bank in Foster Place (Mr. Geoghegan, architect), again, the opening of premises in College-Green and Westmoreland Street respectively, for the ‘Ulster’ and the ‘Union’ Bank of Ireland Companies, and most probably… the contractor for the new Provincial Bank in College-street (Mr. Murray, architect), will be declared. The National Banking Company are at present currently extending their premises by erecting a new cash office, with managers and other apartments, at the rear of the present building, which will be fitted up very handsomely, and lighted from above by a fine dome, the floor to be tiled with encaustic etc. Mr. Caldbeck is architect

1 The Irish Builder, 15 October 1868, 259, quoted in McParland, ‘The Bank and the Visual Arts’, 119.

Inscription on the side of the Hibernian Bank in Castle Street.

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The south side of College Green in 1850 From Henry Shaw, The Dublin Pictorial Guide and Directory of 1850

for the above and Mr. James Freeman (the contractor for the Ulster Bank) is the builder.2 As noted above the decision of the National Bank and the Royal Bank to locate their head-offices on College Green near the Bank of Ireland headquarters, ensured that the other banks would follow suit, and this period saw the transformation of the south side of College Green from a late Georgian

street into a High Victorian one. The extent of the transformation can be judged by comparing the streetscape outline in Shaw’s Pictorial Dublin of 1850 to that of today. 3 Richardson, in his survey of Gothic Revival architecture in Ireland, discussed the set of circumstances that produced so many fine buildings:

Dame Street from College Green.

Photograph by C. Duggan

2 The Dublin Builder, 4, 15 November 1862, 208.

3 Sheehy, Jeanne, ‘A respectable show’, Country Life (July 12, 1979), 82-3.

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and commercial buildings, particularly Italian Gothic, and especially Venetian Gothic, a style promoted by John Ruskin and which found an early expression in the Museum Building in Trinity College Dublin (1853-7) by Deane and Woodward.

As Venetian classicism was already considered acceptable, buildings often combine a hybrid of classical and gothic features, labelled ‘Victorian freestyle’.

Museum Building Trinity College Dublin (1853-7). By Deane and Woodward. Carving externally and internally by Mr. Roe of Lambeth and the legendary John and James O’Shea.

Photograph by C. Duggan

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‘Individual buildings of spectacular proportions and lavish specifications were possible because skilled labour was cheap, creative artisans were available, suitable materials were everywhere at hand, and good sites were still available near the centre…’.4 Perhaps it was less the case that good sites were available as that the banks were prepared to buy out the leases of existing buildings, particularly on College Green. (Joseph Tudor’s ‘A Prospect of the Parliament House in College Green, Dublin’ of 1753 shows an urban streetscape by the mid-eighteenth century). Even towards the end of the nineteenth century, the narrower sites of the Ulster Bank (by Sir Thomas Drew 1888-91) and the Belfast Bank (by William Henry Lynn 1894) (both on College Green) did not preclude but rather demanded highly decorated buildings.

The golden age of Irish banking saw a dramatic increase in branch banking across the country. In the case of Dublin this meant both new buildings and the extension of head offices to accommodate cash office functions, all in surroundings designed to impress the public. As argued above, particularly in relation to head-office public spaces, the scene had been set by Johnston and the Bank of Ireland at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Midcentury architectural responses nevertheless produced some of the most impressive architecture in Dublin.

Ruskinian Gothic The other element in this heady mix was the acceptance of Gothic as a suitable style for public

The hallmarks of High Victorian Gothic include flat surfaces covering simple polyhedral volumes; external and internal colour through the use of varied materials; and heavy detailing, whether sculptural, large and refined or structurally expressive, sharp-edged and coarse. Ruskinian Gothic included all these elements and more.5

4 Douglas Scott Richardson, Gothic Revival Architecture in Ireland (London 1983), 448.

5 Richardson, Gothic Revival, 376.

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Museum Building Trinity College Dublin (1853-7). By Deane and Woodward.

Photograph by C. Duggan.

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The importance of the Museum Building is difficult to overstate. It is a building of international significance and its influence is widely felt in public and commercial architecture in Dublin in the 1860s and 1870s and beyond. Hence the detour into consideration of non-bank architecture. ‘To this remarkable building’ wrote Thomas Drew in 1866 ‘and to this alone we can trace the inauguration of the great revolution in public taste which has since taken place’. Benjamin Woodward died from consumption in 1861 and several months after his death John Ruskin first saw and admired the Dublin Museum, likening it to a ‘richly canopied monument’ to ‘one of my truest and most loving friends’. It was, he concluded ‘quite the noblest thing ever done from my teaching’.

The building in New Square is a broad low-lying Lombardic Gothic palazzo with a hipped roof and emphatic chimneys, faced in Ballyknocken granite, its Portland stone dressing is richly carved with

c.1940

a profusion of inspired naturalistic detail. In the interior the grand top-lit stair hall is enlivened by arched screens, polychromic material and carved ornament.6 The fenestration is all round-headed, and the upper windows have double orders with decorated piers which are reminiscent of Irish Romanesque openings – among other things. The windows are grouped rhythmically and each face is different, thirteen bays to the entrance front and twelve to College Park. The few single ones counteract the emphatic horizontality of the three bands of base mouldings and the projecting, carved string course. The windows are paired, triple- and five-light round arches with foliated pilasters, capitals, voussoirs. The angles are barleysugar colonettes, the base-mould a flower-filled guilloche, the lower sill course rope-moulding, the first floor string course a gigantic floriated ribbon and the eaves a superlative modillion cornice bordered by billet, nailhead and dogtooth. The balustrades and projecting balconies of the upper floor add a distinctly festive air.

The discs of coloured Irish marbles which occur at intervals on the exterior walls are expressive as well as decorative elements. The chimneys play much the same role; unlike those of the nearby Georgian buildings, they are brought to the corners of the building and carried over the wide panels of wall which separate the groups of windows.

Beneath these the marble discs add another accent to the long sides of the building wherever a partition wall abuts on the interior. It is a building for which only superlatives seem suitable in describing it, and the myriad of design sources is impres-

6 Casey, Dublin, 51.

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Former Provincal Bank head office.

College Green (18624), now the Weston Hotel

By William G. Murray. The Portland stone Palladian palace for the Provincial Bank has freely carved detailing inconceivable without the Ruskinian inspired innovations of Deane and Woodward.

Photograph by C. Duggan

sively eclectic. Broadly Venetian in character, it draws upon sources as varied as Charles Barry’s Traveller’s Club (Garden Front) in London, the Palazzo Dario and Casa Visetti (Palazzo Gussoni) in Venice and in the interior the Hall of the Baths at the Alhambra.

Whereas Pugin had succeeded in associating Gothic architecture with Catholicism, it was Ruskin who had wrestled it back for Protestantism, and here at Trinity College, Deane and Woodward used it successfully in the milieu of Palladian and Georgian architecture. From here 7 Richardson, Gothic Revival, 394.

it quickly influenced both public and commercial architecture in the city. The justification of the term “Ruskinian” applied to the Trinity College Museum Building does not only lie in the precedents followed (whether Venetian Gothic or otherwise) but in the originality of two special aspects of the building, both recommended by Ruskin: the naturalistic intentions of the architects, and the creative role assigned to the workmen.7 William Murray’s new head office building for the Provincial Bank on College Street is at first glance a purely Palladian composition complete with di-

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The tympanum of the pediment of the former Provincial Bank (now Westin Hotel).

Photograph by M. O’Neill

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On a triangular site between Westmoreland Street and College Street, this location was considered by the Bank of Ireland in the late eighteenth century and had gone so far as to have John Soane draw up perspective views. The Provincial bank moved here from South William Street. Opposite Trinity College, this may have influenced the choice of Palladian design.

giant order Corinthian columns and pilasters. A fully orthodox Corinthian entablature and triangular pediment crown the advanced middle bays.

Aptly described by Christine Casey as a Palladian palace for the Provincial Bank.8 A balustrade runs over the crowning entablature. The tympanum of the pediment has a richly carved didactic scene of commerce by S.F. Lynn. The window architrave decoration however is far removed from Palladian orthodoxy and Victorian didacticism. The pilasters with foliaged capitals are decorated with interlaced ornament derived from or rather influenced by Deane and Woodwards’ nearby Museum Building in Trinity College. The window architraves of the attic storey are also elaborately carved. Internally, the vestibule, which runs the length of the façade is a polychrome composition of polished floor tiles and polished brass. The ceilings are wonderfully eclectic in the sources employed, many taken directly from Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament, the great Victorian sourcebook of historic design.

Thomas N. Deane also borrowed from this source for the Munster Bank on Dame Street as will be discussed below.

The street frontage presents a three storey sevenbay Palladian design, the advanced central bays have an applied Corinthian order temple front. The building is set on a tall plinth course with semi basement. A round headed ground floor arcade, the windows are deeply recessed, cable roll moulding and richly decorated keystones are set below the busily decorated cornice of the entablature. A blind recessed balustrade is placed in front of tall firstfloor windows between prominent plinths for

At the Union Bank building in College Green, on the corner with Church Street, (quickly taken over by the Hibernian Bank), William Murray built in a style clearly influenced by Deane and Woodwards’ Museum Building Venetian style. Originally of four bays to College Green and two bays to Church Street, the three storey building with French mansard roof must have seemed even more impressively tall. Many of the elements employed at the Museum Building are evident here, including

dactic sculptural ensemble in the tympanum of the pediment.

8 Casey, Dublin, 422-3.

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a heavily detailed cornice, roundels studded with polished granite bosses and emphatic string courses. A ground floor arcade of deeply recessed round headed windows are set between half octagonal piers on tall bases and large moulded capitals. The first floor also has a continuous arcade, much more elaborately treated. Of two main orders, the outer is supported on polished pink granite shafts on bases sitting on the entablature.

Foliated capitals with square abaci are all of carved Portland stone. A roll moulding disguises the arrises of the round-headed arches. A pointed hood mould over each arcade arch descending to carved heads in the spandrels adds a vertical elan. The second storey arcade rises from a carved stringcourse, thus delineating the subordinate top floor from the impressive piano nobile. The arcade at this level comprises shorter round-headed arches with wider piers between with capital friezes. Roundels in the spandrels and in the frieze over this arcade are studded with polished granite bosses. The eaves are articulated by a bracketed cornice, or rather, corbel table below the sweeping Mansard roof. The entrance arch is round-headed, flanked each side by large polished shafts on octagonal sub-bases. These piers support the entablature salient over the entrance bay with a small pediment with a partially erased date stone.

Originally four bays wide on College Green and two bays onto Church Street, the style, height, corner site and entrance was a new architectural departure on this street. Arcades of round-headed arches, polished coloured granite colonettes and roundels and deep naturalistic carving under a tall, French inspired, mansard roof dominates the corner even now.

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The third major building in what might be called Ruskinian Gothic style is the Munster Bank branch on Dame Street, also on a corner site. Here though articulated monumentally in two storeys, it is the same height as the nearby five storey red-brick ground-floor shops and offices, tapering off to a more domestic scale on Palace Street. The polychromy employed by Murray at the Union/ Hibernian bank is in evidence here also in the building by Thomas Newenham Deane, son of Sir Thomas Deane who may have begun the design.

There is an emphatic plinth course of plain ashlar walling below a rope moulded string course at sill level just over head height. Three round-headed windows in two orders are supported on detached

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Union Bank, later Hibernian and now National Irish Bank.

By William G Murray and Thomas Drew, 1864-6. Originally four bays wide on College Green and two bays on Church Street. Carved stonework by Charles William Harrison.

Extended by Thomas Drew in 1873-6 adding three bays and a porch on College Green and two bays on Church Street. Extension into St. Andrew Street by W.H. Byrne in 1925-8.

Photograph by C Duggan

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Above: Munster Bank, Dame Street (1870-4), later Munster and Leinster (1885) and now Allied Irish Bank

by Thomas Newenham Deane in 1870-4. Stone carving by Charles William Harrison.

Enlargement by William Albert Dixon in 1927-8 with stone carving by C.W. Harrison & Sons. The Dame Street façade was doubled in length

by McDonnell & Dixon between 1957-60.

Photograph by C. Duggan Right: The Munster [and Leinster] Bank, Dame Street by Thomas Newenham Deane, 187074. View from NE and Plan. From The Architect,Jan 2, 1875, between pp8-9.

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polished shafts, the foliaged capitals have square abaci. Drip moulds over terminate on foliaged stops. Monogrammed roundels are placed in the spandrels between the lights. A single light, each side of the canted entrance bay, has a single order with nook shafts. An elaborately carved string course runs across the elevation continuous with sill level of the upper floor windows. The first floor lights are simplified versions of the ground floor triplet, the pace is quickened by having four lights, a single order each and a Portland stone carved hood on the continuous drip mould over them.

Portland stone medallions are placed to left and right. The larger one has a date ‘1873’ below Munster and Leinster charged shields. The elevation is capped by an elaborate entablature – or rather a heavy modillioned cornice. The Palace Street façade starts with a balancing side light for the canted entrance. The façade is full of incident.

The triplet of windows on the ground floor are taller with narrower, polished limestone shafts.

Each arch is divided into two lights, the lower flatheaded below a wide carved panel, the upper round headed. Beyond this is the side door entrance to the manager’s quarters with shorter windows over it to left and right.

These buildings are stunning today, and in the context of the later Georgian streetscapes (captured in The Dublin Pictorial Guide and Directory of 1850) they must have seemed revolutionary. Large in scale, of two or three tall stories, and executed with big, round-arched openings (which can still be considered “Gothic” in the light of the elastic Victorian use of the term as synonymous with medieval), they contrasted with the often equally tall but narrower Georgian houses of four storeys or

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more. This new monumentality in bank architecture, particularly on the streetscapes of College Green and Dame Street must have been, and remains today, thrilling to behold. The use of rich colour and material palette of limestone, granite, Portland Stone ashlar facing and the polychromatic decorative elements is also very striking compared with the largely undecorated redbrick Georgian façade. Many of these buildings colonized corner sites, introducing dramatic perspectives and framing vistas. The canted corner entrance bays carried the composition around the two elevations. Unlike the palazzo elevations of the National Bank and the Royal Bank, the Ruskinian Gothic style must have then, as it does today, commanded attention.

The intense competition between banking companies in this period as expressed in architecture might be summed up by the Ulster Bank’s two locations on College Green. A late Georgian house remodelled in 1861 by William Murray was superseded by a new branch on the same street, built in 1888-91 by Thomas Drew, both premises bookending the National Bank. Murray’s applied orders, rising hierarchically through the storeys, successfully integrate the whole elevation to the ground floor modest size banking hall.

Interestingly red sandstone is used by the Ulster Bank as an early form of product differentiation (also later used by Lynn for the Belfast and Northern Bank buildings). Drew’s magnificently Right: Ulster Bank, College Green. By Thomas Drew in 188891, following an architectural competition. The banking hall was removed in 1975 when a large granite-clad colonnaded extension was built to the right by Boyle & Delaney.

Photograph by C. Duggan

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Right: Detail of the façade of the Belfast Bank, College Green.

Later Royal Bank, then AIB. Now the Bank Bar and Restaurant.

W.H. Lynn in 1895.

Photo on right from IAA photograph collection. Photograph

by M. O’Neill Right, below: Former Belfast Bank, College Green. Courtesy of the Irish Architectural Archive.

overblown façade of the replacement was built following an architectural competition. The façade consists of an engaged temple front to the upper storeys with Ionic order columns on tall, storey high plinths, a full entablature and pediment, supported on a deep channelled ground floor. An elaborate bracketed balcony with baroque scrolls sweeps over the deep and tall round-headed entrance porch.

Next to the Hibernian (NIB) in contrasting red sandstone is the Belfast Bank built in 1895 by W. H. Lynn on a narrow plot. The building rises four storeys and dormer attic over a basement. It is four bays wide, with three advanced bays treated as a pedimented banking hall block, while the east bay rises as a baronial turret. Faced with imported Scottish (Caledonian) sandstone ashlar, a nod perhaps to its political inclinations. Projecting square-

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headed portico, Ionic pilasters with recessed panels decorated with margents and urns at the base, supports a plain entablature with a Baroque scrolled pediment with cartouche over. The eastern bay is planar at ground-floor level, had two square-headed windows with a rusticated mullion, now transformed into a street level doorway.

Over this a cartouche acts as a stop where the turret begins to corbel out, being fully formed at the level of the string course below the Corinthian façade of the main block. The plain frieze of the Corinthian entablature was formerly engraved with ‘BELFAST BANKING COMPANY’. The paterae at the ends remain. There was a balustrade over the entablature, the posts remain but with concrete block courses replacing the balusters.

Hardly as bombastic as Drew’s exercise for the Ulster Bank, this elaborate composition used both imported red sandstone and a historicist style associated with Scotland and the North and was surely as effective in branding itself as the Celtic Revival Hibernia at balustrade level on the nearby National Bank headquarters.

The Northern Bank on Grafton Street was built by William Henry Lynn in 1902-3. A three-bay immensely tall palazzo style bank with a façade of red and yellow sandstone on a polished limestone plinth course. A polished limestone doorcase in the north bay comprises Ionic order colonettes supporting a broken-apex triangular pediment.

The upper storeys are screened behind a giant Corinthian order with polished red granite columns. Set back behind the Corinthian entablature is an attic storey, thermal windows between scrolled brackets supporting a Tuscan order entablature topped with a balustrade.

Northern Bank, Grafton St. Now American Apparel

By W.H. Lynn in 1902-3. Photograph

by C. Duggan Left: Doorcase of the same building.

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he late eighteenth-century work at the stock office, four and five percent offices and Consols office in the Bank of England head office influenced later architects to look upon the banking hall, or cash office, as a space that should be used to display elaborate decorative detail and intricate design. Francis Johnston had already achieved this in the former Parliament building for the Bank of Ireland. At mid century the new banking institutions took the opportunity to respond to Johnston’s challenge.

Former National Bank, once Habitat and now vacant, College Green by Charles Geoghegan 1899-90. Photograph M. O’Neill

New banking halls were added to the rear of the Royal Bank in Foster Place and the National Bank in College Green to rival those of the new buildings of the Provincial, Hibernian and Munster.

These spaces are among the glories of Victorian architecture in Dublin. Cast-iron technology was exploited by Charles Geoghegan and William Caldbeck to add top lit banking halls; the newer head-office bank buildings incorporated banking halls from the start.

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Proposed National Bank, College Green, Dublin, plan, Charles Geoghegan, c.1862, (80/32.I.1/2, Geoghegan Collection, Irish Architectural Archive).

Proposed National Bank, College Green, Dublin, section, Charles Geoghegan, c.1862, (80/32.I.1/3, Geoghegan Collection, Irish Architectural Archive).

Proposed National Bank, College Green, Dublin, perspective view of new cash office, Charles Geoghegan, c.1862, (80/32.I.2, Geoghegan Collection, Irish Architectural Archive).

The ground floor of the former National Bank is an entirely arcaded open plan space. From College Green, entry to the bank is through a hall lobby that is five bays wide and three bays deep, with a plain coffered ceiling. The internal walls of the upper floors are supported on metal beams and iron columns. The bank hall opens up to form a dramatic top-lit space centred around a dome structure flanked by segmental vaulted aisles. It is seven bays wide and four bays deep. Here, cast iron columns and carved wooden Corinthian capitals support the vaulted roof structure providing the open space which is arranged as follows: the cen-

tral dome, supported on eight pillars, is surrounded by a square ambulatory-like space with a flat glazed ceiling; the dome and ambulatory space is flanked by segmental vaults which incorporate top-lit glazing set in iron frames that follow the

Former Banking hall of the National Bank

by Charles Geoghegan in 188890. Shows the relationship between the dome-lit central space and outer aisles, flat and quadrant respectively. Elements of Geoghegan’s arrangement at the Royal Bank are evident here in the outer quadrant vaulted aisles.

Photograph M. O’Neill

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curve of the coffered vault. The space was extended to Suffolk Street in 1965 by Ronnie Tallon to form a contrasting Miesian interior, emphasising luxurious materials such as polished marble and brass within a diverging spatial arrangement.

Sadly little of this later intervention, or indeed the façade of the same date survived the conversion to retail use in recent years.

Possibly the finest of the Victorian banking halls in the city is that for the Royal Bank in Foster Place, designed by Charles Geoghegan in 1859-60.

Incorporating one and a half floors of the former Daly’s Clubhouse to the front, the top-lit banking hall is located in the former yards to the rear. In effect, Geoghegan has incorporated six bays of the ground and 1st floor into the banking hall vestibule. The space is arcaded throughout. It comprises the tall three-bay entrance vestibule, one and a half storeys high and two bays deep, supported on iron columns, which opens into a double-height church-like banking hall of central nave and lower flanking quadrant vaulted aisles.

The Corinthian columns, with diaper decoration, support a deeply coffered ceiling with palmette leaf decoration in six panels surrounding a rosette.

Polychrome detailing such as the encaustic tiled floor and a pair of large green Connemara marble fireplaces further enrich the hall. Tall round headed windows to the interior face onto Foster Place have panelling between the lights and wide panelled transoms. These are enriched with barley sugar continuous rear-arch colonettes. The round arched upper register is lit by the lower half of the 1st floor exterior windows. The banking hall is located in the former courtyard. The quadrant aisle vaults have coffered panelling and are top lit by

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glass panes following the curve of the vault. An elaborately foliaged frieze runs along the aisle walls between the corbel capitals from which the ribs spring. The main space is top lit by a wagon coffered vault of four bays supported on iron Corinthian columns.

The banking hall of the Provincial Bank, College Street, built in 1862-64 by William G. Murray is not ranged behind the ground floor windows.

Rather an elaborately decorated vestibule leads into a corridor running the width of the façade and behind this and wrapped around on all sides is the magnificent banking hall. Originally top lit, the banking hall is articulated as a six bay deep by three bay wide space. Pilasters define bays on the long walls and two freestanding polished marble columns at either end divide the space into implied main and side aisles. A Corinthian order with deep entablature runs under the coved ceiling with rich stuccowork by Thomas Saunders.

Sumptuously carved and completely orthodox compared to the decorative scheme of the vestibule and corridor outside. Unlike the arcaded interiors of the National Bank and Royal Bank, here, the interior is free of all structural columns to form a completely open-plan space. Such open plan bank halls are also evident at the National Irish Bank, College Green and the Munster and Leinster (now AIB), Dame Street.

The banking hall of the former Hibernian (now NIB) bank is two bays deep and runs the full length of the College Green elevation. It has a deep coved ceiling with flat middle section, the coving decorated with deep fibrous plaster coffering. Built on a corner site, the banking hall is not top lit, in-

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Provincial Bank College Green, later AIB, now the Westin Hotel. The dramatic banking hall by William G. Murray, 1862-64.

Photograph by C. Duggan

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NIB (formerly Hibernian), College Green.

By William G Murray and Thomas Drew 1864-71.

Extended by Drew between 1873-6.

Photograph by Stephen Farrell

stead tall south facing windows and corner entrance maximize light in the interior. At the east and west ends arched bays lead off into the private offices.

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The banking hall of the former Munster and Leinster bank (now AIB) on Dame Street is a double height space and has a coved ceiling which rises high above the first floor windows. Built on a corner site it eschewed the top-lit solution. The

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side walls are articulated with pilasters on high bases above polished marble plinths. Highly decorated capitals, animals and birds of various kinds interspersed with foliage, support a blind round arched arcade below the entablature crowning the wall. The ceiling is simply spectacular. Severies over the north and south end, quadrants along the side walls, ribs between plain decorative panels. A deep rectangular frame occupies the flat central portion, and ultimately derives from Venetian ceil-

ings of the sixteenth century. Patterns include Greek palmette, Islamic crossed squares. The pattern-book sources of these motifs have been identified as being from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament.1 Some of the internal carving is didactic, especially the capitals depicting plenty and want, illustrated by cornucopia and starving animals respectively.

1 By Douglas Scott Richardson.

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The most striking feature of the former Belfast Bank Banking Hall is its top lit glazed barrel vault set above a segmental vault with bands of coffering at its base and glazed panels. Paterae and swags decorate the drum of the axial glazed barrel vault.

Polished red granite Corinthian columns separate the east aisle from the main space; this is also top lit with an apex glazed roof. The Corinthian capi-

Ceiling of banking hall of AIB Dame Street, Formerly Munster & Leinster Bank. By Thomas N Deane, 1870-74.

Photograph by C. Duggan

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Ceiling of the former Belfast Bank, College Green. By William Henry Lynn in 1893.

Photograph by M. O’Neill

tals and entablature are exquisitely carved.

Monogrammed cartouches abound with addorsed BBs for Belfast Bank. A mosaic floor adds to the muted polychromatic effect.

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Internal furnishings and fittings Furniture and fittings were an important aspect of banking hall interiors – mahogany and marble predominated. The counter is an integral element

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of the banking hall. In the case of top-lit head-office cash offices, there were two main ways of arranging the counter. The horse-shoe shaped layout of the Royal Bank (also the disposition of the National), had the bank staff in the centre of the hall with the customers ranged outside. By way of contrast in the Bank of Ireland and the Provincial, the customers stood in a middle aisle with counters ranged in front of the side walls. Large

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Proposed National Bank, College Green, Dublin, cash office detail, Charles Geoghegan, c.1862, (80/32.I.1/6 (top), Geoghegan Collection, Irish Architectural Archive).

Connemara marble fireplaces heated the Foster Place banking hall. Patterned floor tiles were another aspect of the polychromatic interiors.

An insight into the internal arrangement of the horseshoe counter design is provided by Geoghegan’s proposed plans for the National Bank in College Green, where cashiers, tellers, ledger keeper, accountant and sub-manager’s spaces were disposed inside the counter in a hierarchy reflected in floor level. The importance of the decorative quality of the counter is also emphasised in

Geoghegan’s sections and elevations. Well into the twentieth century, the use of expensive hardwood timbers, suitably carved was an essential element of bank interiors.

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n addition to fine exteriors and lavish interiors designed to assure customers of the solidity of the banking enterprises, the ideological and political sensibilities of the client base was expressed to an extent in the building fabric of some of the banking institutions. The English managed Provincial bank, the most serious opposition to the Bank of Ireland, was aware of the complex nature of Irish politics. Essentially a Protestant institution, it had nevertheless received, along with the National, the support of Daniel O’Connell and the

Repeal movement. The Provincial bank on College Street, a neo-Palladian composition modified by roped mouldings, panels of foliage and chevron carvings, was described by O’Brien as an AngloIrish creation.1 The tympanum has an elaborate didactic Victorian composition of agriculture and commerce, presumably appealing to customers of every religious and political hue.

The Hibernian and Munster (later Munster and Leinster) banks were Catholic and Nationalist. The

Provincial Bank, College Street, now Weston Hotel William Murray, 1862-4. Sculpture in pediment by Samuel Ferres Lynn in 1864 depicting Agriculture and Commerce.

Photograph by M. O’Neill

1 Emmet O’Brien, ‘Bank Building in Nineteenth-Century Ireland’, Irish Arts Review, 11, 1995, 157162, at 160.

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Far left: Munster & Leinster Bank (now AIB), Dame Street, Thomas N Deane, 1870-74.

Left: National Bank, College Green.

Sculptural composition by Pearse and Sharp of Great Brunswick Street, Dublin, 1888-90.

Photographs by M. O’Neill

Munster bank on Dame Street, described by Richardson as ‘Hibernian Monumental’, deliberately evokes both Venetian gothic and Irish Romanesque on the exterior.2 In the banking hall, above the historiated capitals of the pilasters articulating the long sided walls are personifications of plenty – female heads with garlands of grain or flowers. Alternating with these are starving squirrels and dogs, surely recalling the recent horrors of the famine. Didactic and political.

its interlaced decoration and the Irish inscription on the pedestal, ‘Erin go Bragh’.

Branch banks of the National at Rathmines and Pearse Street have carved tympana with a reduced version of this motif – an Irish harp charged shield is placed between wolfhounds rampant.

The Irish headquarters of the National Bank, faced the Bank of Ireland on College Green. Above cornice level and centred over the entrance is an elaborate carved composition. The panelled plinth has shamrock and crown motifs. Over this Erin, represented by a female figure, sits in majesty – her harp, an Irish wolfhound, the Irish crown and various emblems of trade and commerce (bales and casks) surrounding her. The figure’s clothing is classical in treatment. Pearse and Sharpe have employed a stylised manner for their forms. Typical of Celtic Revival sculpture is the ornate harp with 2 Douglas Scott Richardson, Gothic Revival Architecture in Ireland, 2 Vols (New York and London 1983), Vol 2, 416-21.

The National Bank, Pearse St. (left) and the National Bank, Rathmines (below), now both Bank of Ireland, and their carved tympana.

Photograph by M. O’Neill

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Right: The former Belfast Bank on College Green, now The Bank Bar and Restaurant.

Photograph by C. Duggan Far right: The former Standard Life Assurance Company on O’Connell St. Photograph by C. Duggan

The former Ulster Bank on College Green, now Books Upstairs.

Photograph by C. Duggan

The Belfast Bank branch on College Green and the Northern Bank branch on Grafton Street, both by William Henry Lynn are noteworthy for their use of imported red sandstone contrasting with the prevailing use of limestone and granite.

Somewhat earlier, William Murray had faced a late Georgian house in red sandstone on College Green for the Ulster Bank. Two Scottish based Insurance company offices, later converted to banks, the Standard Life Assurance Company by David Bryce, now NIB on O’Connell Street, was built in gold coloured sandstone, the Scottish Widows Insurance building of 1875 by T.N. Deane in red sandstone with Portland and limestone dressings, now AIB Westmoreland Street. The Belfast Bank branch in Rathmines by Vincent Craig, in red brick with limestone door surround is in the Scottish Baronial Style. Materials and styles were being deliberately used by northern based banks and Scottish insurance firms to highlight architecturally what might now be called product differentiation.

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ranch bank architecture in Dublin can, for our purposes, be divided into two periods, 1858 to 1915 and 1916 to 1960. The first period is from the beginning of the so-called golden age of Irish banking up to 1915, from High Victorian Eclecticism to Edwardian Classicism.

The second period begins with the rebuilding of O’Connell Street following the Easter Rising in 1916. In some ways this was a reflection of the building campaigns of the 1860s on College Green, but on a smaller scale, as branch banks rather than head-office buildings were replaced.

Nevertheless the Edwardian Baroque architectural styles used on Lower O’Connell Street can be usefully compared to the stripped or trabeated classicism employed elsewhere in the city and particularly in the expanding suburbs.

While branch expansion increased dramatically throughout the country between 1858 and 1879, the so called golden age, in Dublin most activity was concentrated on new head office buildings and additions of banking halls to existing ones, as outlined above. In this period, branch expansion in Dublin was minimal, three for the Royal Bank, at Arran Quay (since rebuilt), Cornmarket (1866) and O’Connell Street (1869), a Hibernian Bank Branch on O’Connell St (1878) (destroyed in 1916), a Bank of Ireland branch at North Wall Quay (1878) (demolished), and a Munster and Leinster branch on O’Connell St (destroyed in 1916). Over the longer 1858 to 1916 period, a total of some

The former Royal Bank on Cornmarket Street by Charles Geoghegan in 1866.

Now Farrow and Ball. Photograph by C. Duggan

twenty bank branches were built or premises converted to form banks.

Stylistic Tendencies in the Later Victorian Period The Ruskinian style promoted by Deane and Woodward which was so influential on head-office architecture also informed branch architecture. Charles Geoghegan used this style for the Cornmarket branch of the Royal Bank (in a departure from the palazzo style employed by that bank), W.H. Byrne at the Hibernian branch at 1213 O’Connell Street, and for the Hibernian at Thomas Street in 1902. J.J. O’Callaghan employed

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Above: Hibernian Bank, O’Connell Street in Easter 1916.

The former ‘Gin Palace’ of W.G. Moody, built by T. N. Deane in 1872 and suitably remodelled

by O’Neill & Byrne.

Carving by Charles William Harrison, 1878. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

it at the Munster and Leinster branch at 30 O’Connell Street. Both branches on O’Connell Street were destroyed in 1916.

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Above right: Hibernian Branch, Thomas Street

By William Henry Byrne, 1902.

Photograph by C. Duggan Munster & Leinster Bank, 30 O’Connell St in 1916.

Conversion of existing premises by J.J. O’Callaghan in 1896.

Courtesy of the Irish Architectural Archive

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The Hibernian branch on Thomas Street is an Italianate style bank building, four bays wide and three storeys high in limestone ashlar and polished marble colonettes, terraced and taller than surrounding buildings. In the spandrels over the door arch and over the first floor windows are recessed polished marble spheres adding to the muted polychromatic façade. The building is in the Ruskinian Gothic style introduced by Deane and Woodward. The use of limestone and polished colonettes is in the Hibernian monumental style, and immediately recognizable as a bank. More generally, the formula of progressive simplification of detail, the building characterised by its narrow vertical axis, squeezing above the roof line of its neighbours, emphasised by a frieze or entablature, was a common enough motif in bank building, stretching back some number of decades. This style of bank detailing is clearly evident in English

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the larger towns. Possibly alluding to the Baroque pediment over Lynn’s College Green Belfast Bank branch, the pediment is copied here but in the tympanum above is a very distinctive Irish composition of wolfhounds rampant with a harpcharged shield between, echoing no doubt the sentiments of the ‘Erin go Bragh’ sculpture on the National Bank headquarters in College Green.

National Bank, Rathmines (1899) (now Bank of Ireland)

by William Butler, 1897. Photograph by C. Duggan

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London and County Bank. Mr. C.O. Parnell, Architect. From The Builder, Vol 20 (1862), p605.

bank architecture also, described and illustrated in the architectural press. 3 The National Bank’s Rathmines branch of 1899, built in red sandstone, is two storeys high but dwarfs the three storey over raised basement terrace beside it. Jutting forward on the streetscape it embodies the spirit of fierce architectural competition among the banks more generally found in

3 An elevation of the London and County Bank, Lombard Street, London, by C. O. Parnell, was published in The Builder in August 23, 1862, page 605.

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Right: Bank of Ireland, Stephen’s Green.

Charles Herbert Ashworth, 1912.

Photograph by C. Duggan Below left: Former Royal Bank, Terenure.

By O’Callaghan & Webb, 1911.

Photograph by C. Duggan Below right: Former Ulster Bank, Lr Baggot St. Porch by W.M. Mitchell & sons, 1909 Photograph by M. O’Neill

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Left: Former Provincial Bank, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, front elevation, Carroll & Bachelor, 1902 (79/17.1/2 (detail), McCurdy & Mitchell Collection, Irish Architectural Archive).

Far left: Former Provincial Bank, Stephen’s Green. By Carroll & Bachelor, 1902. Photograph by M. O’Neill Below: Former Bank of Ireland, Ormond Quay by Adam Gerald Millar (1919). Photograph

by C. Duggan

In the early years of the twentieth century there is a return to more formal and straightforward classical detailing in bank facades including Doric or Tuscan columns supporting the entablature/ nameboard, rusticated pilasters and, especially, heavy bracketed pediments over the entrance doorway. The Provincial Bank branch on St. Stephen's Green, the Northern Bank branch on Grafton Street, and the Royal Bank branch in Terenure exemplify these features. A formal porch was added to the Ulster Bank branch at 128 Lower Baggot Street underlining the influence of Edwardian Classicism in this period. The Bank of Ireland branch on Stephen’s Green of 1912 and the same bank’s Ormond Quay branch by Adam Gerald C Millar of 1919, represent a return to standard Italianate themes.

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On the corner is the former Munster & Leinster bank of 1916-19 by Laurence Aloysius McDonnell.

Now the Grand Central Bar. Photograph by C. Duggan

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he rebuilding of the east side of O’Connell Street following the shelling and fire damage of the Easter Rising in 1916 included four branch banks on the east side, and another at the upper west end possibly built after Civil War damage. Reconstruction on the street was carried out in reinforced concrete for the most part. There were restrictions on height, a prescribed cornice level and a classical vocabulary

was imposed by the city architect Horace O’Rourke. The Munster and Leinster Bank took the opportunity to build a new branch at 10-11 O’Connell Street (the branch had been at no. 30) on a corner site and directly opposite the Hibernian Bank branch at number 12-13. Both were built between 1916 and 1919. The Bank of Ireland built a new branch at number 28 O’Connell Street between 1919 and 1921. The Provincial Bank built a new branch at 37 Upper O’Connell Street in 1921-1922 and the Ulster Bank built at number 4 O’Connell Street in 1923.

Lower O’Connell Street before April 1916. From Frederick O’Dwyer, Lost Dublin, p15.

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Provincial, now AIB, Upper O’Connell St.

By Bachelor & Hicks, 1921-2, extended twice to its eight bay length retaining uniformity of façade.

Photograph by C. Duggan

The sombre palazzo style of the upper elevation of the Provincial Bank’s Upper O’Connell Street branch of granite ashlar and Portland stone dressings, points up the exuberant Edwardian Baroque style of the Lower O’Connell Street bank branches.

It shares many practices in bank architecture such as the corner entrance bay. It had originally only three bays onto O’Connell Street, but was later extended in the same architectural idiom. The four buildings – Bank of Ireland (now Smiles Dental Spa), Hibernian ( now Permanent TSB), Munster and Leinster (now Grand Central Bar) and the Ulster Bank – have diagnostic details including rusticated ground floors pierced by round headed arches, colonnades of Ionic order columns, a pro-

Former Hibernian Bank (now Permanent TSB) built between 1916 and 1919 by Ralph Henry Byrne. Photograph by C. Duggan

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The oeil-de-boeuf windows of the mansard roof of the Hibernian bank, O’Connell Street, Dublin 1.

fusion of dormer windows, mansard roofs, domes and corner turrets – that are unmistakably Baroque.

Below left: Hanna’s Ulster Bank, O’Connell Steet Lower, Dublin 1.

The Port of Liverpool building (the Dock Office), built in 1907, is the type of Edwardian architecture that heavily influenced the former Munster and Leinster bank but the curved corner entrance bay and the corner Borrominesque tower make it heroic. The inscribed segmental pediments on the second floor windows of the Hibernian bank opposite are also derived from this source. The oeilde-boeuf windows of the mansard roof of the Hibernian bank are made a feature of the façade of Hanna’s Ulster Bank and McDonnell and Dixon’s Bank of Ireland (which also has the motto ‘Bona Fides Republicae Stabilitas’ under a cartouche of a winged messenger) all suggest French Baroque influence. The Hibernian bank corner entrance bay is topped with a turret, the Ulster Bank has a Wren inspired dome.

Below right: McDonnell and Dixon’s Bank of Ireland, O’Connell Steet Lower, Dublin 2, with the motto ‘Bona Fides Republicae Stabilitas’ under a cartouche of a winged messenger.

Photographs by C. Duggan

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The Hibernian and the Munster and Leinster display a common treatment of a corner site. The acute angle sharpened perception of the corner, which articulated and controlled two identical facades, the dome on the Munster and Leinster serving no other purpose than to focus the eye on the rounded strength of the angle and serve as a landmark.

Hanna’s Baggot Street building for the Ulster Bank, also on a corner site, is a more controlled exercise than the Lower O’Connell Street bank branches and, with the Provincial branch on O’Connell Street, points the way forward towards progressive simplification. Both employ a canted and faceted entrance bay, rising through the storeys, to control the adjoining elevations. The large Bank of Ireland branch on Ormond Quay at the junction with Capel Street, built in 1919 by Millar, clearly owes more to Ashworth’s 1912 branch on Stephen’s Green and ultimately Sandam Symes branch architecture of the nineteenth-century than the O’Connell Street branch of the same date.

Top: Hibernian Bank, 12-13 Lower O’Connell Street, Dublin, elevations, W.H. Byrne & Son, 1917 (2006/142, W.H. Byrne & Son Collection, Irish Architectural Archive).

Allied Irish Bank, O’Connell St. Photograph by M. O’Neill

Above: Ulster Bank Baggot St. (1920-23). By James A Hannah. Photograph by C. Duggan

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number of different architectural styles is used in this period, stripped classicism in the ‘classic-cum-steel frame manner’ and a more conservative looking ‘bankers Georgian’, or neo-Georgian. The Provincial bank branch at Richmond Street is a good example of the stripped style while the Guinness & Mahon head office on College Green is more traditionally Georgian. The National bank suburban branches are often small and of no great architectural pretension, most often refurbishments of existing ter-

Richmond Street AIB 1923 stripped classical style

By Frederick George Hicks. Photograph by M. O’Neill

raced house(s) by Fuller and Jermyn. The Bank of Ireland branches are instantly recognisable neoGeorgian, with the combination of brick and limestone fronts, at Ballsbridge, Glasnevin, and Fairview for example.

Richmond Street, a small branch bank for the Provincial Bank of Ireland, is nevertheless in a monumental style, and the build quality is extremely high. The classical idiom used including Greek Revival elements is an interesting transition

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from the Edwardian baroque style of the nearly contemporary O’Connell Street branches towards stripped classicism. The survival of mahogany draught lobby, doors, the wagon vaulted ceiling and some furniture makes this an important survival of early twentieth century architecture.

Above left: Former Guinness and Mahon Bank by Robert Donnelly, Donnelly, Moore & Keating, built 1930-1931.

Photograph by C. Duggan Above right: Bank of Ireland, St. Mobhi Road, Glasnevin, by Adam Gerald Chayton Millar.

Photograph by M. Alwardi Left: Ulster Bank Ballsbridge (formerly Bank of Ireland)

By Adam Gerard C Millar, 1931.

Photograph by M. Alwardi

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he branch bank interiors are obviously smaller than the head-office banking halls discussed above, which count among the finest nineteenth-century interiors in Dublin. Nevertheless the branch bank interiors were often highly decorative architectural spaces.

They generally lack the arcaded interior spaces of their larger counterparts, the coffered ceilings and large scroll brackets are designed to disguise the structural beams running from wall to wall.

Isolated piers in the appropriate classical order or a stripped variation thereof are primarily structural and often duplicate as writing desks.

The Central Bar, formerly the Munster & Leinster (AIB) bank at 11-12 Lr O’Connell Street. By Lawrence Aloysius McDonnell, 1916-19. Photograph by C. Duggan

Wall surface decoration is an important element of several early twentieth-century banks. Though no longer in use as a bank, the former Munster and Leinster bank at 10-11 Lr. O’Connell Street, now the Central Bar, retains a largely intact interior.

The banking hall lives up to the Baroque exuberance of the exterior. An intact tiled floor, the walls, door, and window surrounds are faced with stone coloured tiles and lion-headed masks. The round headed rear arches are repeated as blind arches on the non-fenestrated walls. A fluted frieze at rear arch impost level runs around the interior. The banking hall is top lit with a glass dome supported on Ionic piers on tall plinths borrowing light from the mezzanine level into which it rises. Columns and bases are lined with polished red and dark green Connemara marble. The original teller’s counter is situated in front of the non-fenestrated

BRANCH BANK HISTORIC INTERIORS

61

internal wall. A sensitive conversion to public house use retained in situ the draught lobby, tiled floor, domed ceiling, its original clock set in a broken pediment and internal swinging doors. The banking hall was extended into 39 Abbey Street in 1924-5. There, similarly clad piers support a coffered ceiling with runs of foliage on the soffits.

There is wooden panelling instead of tiled walls.

The basement contains strong rooms and vaults.

The Bank Manager’s quarters on the upper floors, and the clerks’ top floor rooms are now apartments.

The architectural firm of McDonnell and Dixon was also responsible for the Bank of Ireland Branch on O’Connell Street, now Smiles Dental Spa. The banking hall is three bays deep and three bays wide on a longer east west axis. Here again the walls are tiled with natural stone colour. The middle bay is the most elaborate with top lit curved glass, following the wagon roof shape.

Fluted Doric columns support the entablature under this bay.

The Allied Irish Bank at 37 O’Connell Street Upper, formerly a Provincial Bank branch, has a rich palette of materials in the banking hall. A large banking hall eight bays long and widening from two bays at the entrance to four bays at the southern end. A coffered ceiling is supported on detached striated marble-clad piers and the non-fenestrated walls are also clad in Pazanozzi marble from floor to ceiling. The pier bases and capitals are bronze. Heavy mahogany doors hang in the marble clad walls. Counters beneath the window bays near the entrance are mahogany. A mahogany bench seat survives.

Internal furniture and fittings While architectural detailing may survive in branch bank interiors, counters, writing desks and other rich hardwood furnishings have fared less well.

Dome lighting the Central Bar, formerly the Munster & Leinster (AIB) bank at 11-12 Lr O’Connell Street.

Photograph by C. Duggan

Left: A detail of the faience interior in the bank hall of the Central Bar, former Munster & Leinster Bank (AIB). Photograph by C. Duggan.

62

B A N K A RC H I T E C T U R E

IN

DUBLIN –

A

H I S T O RY

TO

c.1940

FORMER NATIONAL BANK, ARRAN QUAY The Arran Quay bank has raised and fielded panels in the draught lobby and on the lower half of internal leaf doors salient to the entrance door.

Glazing in upper sections of both. Black and white tiled floor. Panelling on walls to dado level.

Counters with eight raised and fielded panels between elongated scrolled bracket dividers.

Compartmentalised ceiling with scroll brackets.

FORMER NATIONAL BANK, RATHMINES The Rathmines interior has an applied Corinthian order articulating a space that is three bays wide and three bays deep. Pilasters rise from bases above dado rail height and support a continuous entabAbove: Former Bank of Ireland, now Smiles Dental Spa, 28 O’Connell Street.

Photograph by C. Duggan Right: Capital detail of marble pier in the Allied Irish Bank at 37 O'Connell Street Upper. Photograph

by M. O'Neill.

BRANCH BANK HISTORIC INTERIORS

63

Former National Bank, Arran Quay, 1905-7. now Bank of Ireland. Counter.

Below Former National Bank, Rathmines, 1899 now Bank of Ireland.

Interior partly intact

By William Butler and Frederick Augustus Butler.

Photographs by M. O’Neill

Former National Bank, Arran Quay, 1905-7. now Bank of Ireland. Exterior and intact interior by James Franklin Fuller.

Photograph by C. Duggan

lature, interrupted by later offices. Compartmentalised ceiling with highly decorated bosses and soffits suggests the steel floor structure above. The banking hall is fairly intact – partitioned offices ruin the effect of a sumptuous banking hall where originally the teller counters were U-shaped (like the Foster Place arrangement on a smaller scale). In spite of these qualifications it is rather wonderful.

The 1940s A very distinctive architectural style was employed by the Munster and Leinster in the 1940s. A clever stripped classicism style, often with art-deco

detailing executed in the finest limestone and granite ashlars by Beckett & Harrington and McDonnell & Dixon, seemed to tap into a corporate aesthetic of stylistic conservatism.

64

B A N K A RC H I T E C T U R E

Above: Former Munster & Leinster, Rathgar, 1947, now AIB. By Cyril Ashlin Harrington.

Photograph by C. Duggan

FORMER MUNSTER AND LEINSTER, RATHGAR.

IN

DUBLIN –

A

H I S T O RY

The imposing façade with exquisitely cut limestone and the stripped classicism detailing served as the equivalent of image branding for the Munster and Leinster Bank in the middle years of the twentieth century. A similar style was employed at the Morehampton and Inchicore Road branches.

TO

c.1940

FORMER MUNSTER AND LEINSTER, DRUMCONDRA The middle bays of the upper storeys are treated as a giant order with the windows and fluted pilasters recessed on the façade. The capitals have addorsed sun-rise motifs. Entablature absent, a polished stone plaque with ‘BANK’ and the Munster and Leinster shields to left and right respectively adorn the stepped parapet. A single course of fluted pilaster rises between the outer and middle bays, hinting at an even more elaborate applied order.

Above : Former Munster & Leinster, Drumcondra, 1940 now AIB by Beckett & Harrington. Photograph by C. Duggan Left: Former Munster & Leinster, Inchicore. By McDonnell & Dixon 1943. Photograph by C. Duggan

BRANCH BANK HISTORIC INTERIORS

65

Intact historic interiors are, frankly, more the exception than the rule. Where they survive even in part they impart a sense of stability, wealth and quiet opulence – mahogany counters, tiled floors, richly coffered ceilings. In the early 1980s McParland identified the ‘Vatican II’ tendency of bank branches being stripped of their historic interiors and high counters. ‘It was as if a bankers’ equivalent of a Vatican Council had decreed deep mahogany counters to be as suspect as altar rails.

The bank clerk was no longer to be a hierophant, he was to be a friend. Friendliness was not to be inhibited by carved woodwork and polychrome tiles, it was to be engendered by artificial laminates’.1 More recent security concerns cannot have been the only motivator for internal re-ordering.

Corporate re-branding following the mergers into the ‘big four’ was no doubt a large factor.

1 Edward McParland, ‘The Bank and the Visual Arts’, in F.S.L. Lyons, Bank of Ireland 1783 – 1983 Bicentenary Essays (Dublin 1983), 120.

Detail of façade of former Belfast Bank, College Green, later Royal Bank, then AIB. Now the Bank Bar and Restaurant.

Photograph by C. Duggan.

66

CON CLUS IO N

B

ank architecture was designed to exude an atmosphere of wealth, honesty, permanence and stability. Other attributes of the joint-stock banking companies included solidity, purpose and strength. The bank companies were, for the most part, prepared to engage the most able architects to design and build impressive architecture. The majority date from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, employing a variety of historicist styles. The buildings trace both the social and economic history of the city and its environs. They are an integral element of the streetscape of Dublin.

Newcomen Bank, ceiling in the Oval Room. Photograph by C. Duggan.

A modern day equivalent of Rocque’s eighteenthcentury map of Dublin and Shaw’s nineteenth-century pictorial guide and directory would highlight the important contribution bank buildings make to the architecture and layout of the city. Expensive to build and to maintain, this important architectural heritage presents challenges to the relevant city authorities, the banking institutions and more recently to the new owners of several of the premises.

Designed as commercial buildings, the main public space, the banking halls, are an important part of the interior architecture of the city. The architecture, both external and internal is a vital part of the cultural, artistic, and commercial history of the city.

67

B IBLIO GRAPHY

B DB I

The Builder Dublin Builder Irish Builder (formerly, until 1866, Dublin Builder)

Irish Architectural Archive, Dictionary of Irish Architecture 1720-1940.

Booker, John,Temples of Mammon. The Architecture of Banking (Edinburgh 1990) Craig, Maurice, Dublin 1660-1860 (Dublin 1980) Casey, Christine, Dublin (Yale 2005) Crook, J. Mordaunt, The Dilemma of Style (London 1987) Cullen, L.M. , ‘Germination and Growth’, in Bernard Share ed., Root and Branch Allied Irish Banks Yesterday,today,tomorrow (Dublin 1979), 23-60 Curran, C.P., ‘The Architecture of the Bank of Ireland’ Part II 1800-1946 in F.G. Hall, The Bank of Ireland 1783-1946 (Dublin 1949), 455471 Dickson, David and Richard English, ‘The La Touche Dynasty’, in David Dickson, ed., The Gorgeous Mask Dublin 1700-1850 (Dublin 1987) Johnston-Liik, Edith Mary, History of the Irish Parliament 1692-1800 Vol 1 (Belfast 2002) Jones, Owen, The Grammar of Ornament (New York 1987) Larmour, Paul, Free State Architecture (Cork 2009) Lyons, F.S.L., ed., Bank of Ireland Bicentenary Essays 1783-1983 (Dublin 1983) McGowan, Padraig, Money and Banking in Ireland (Dublin 1990)

McDonnell, Joseph, Irish Eighteenth-Century Stuccowork and its European Sources (Dublin 1991) McManus, Ruth, Crampton Built (Dublin 2008) McParland, Edward, ‘The Bank and the Visual Arts’, in Lyons, F.S.L., ed., Bank of Ireland Bicentenary Essays 1783-1983 (Dublin 1983), 97-139 McParland, Edward, Alistair Rowan and Ann Martha Rowan, The Architecture of Richard Morrison and William Vitruvius Morrison (Dublin 1989) O’Brien, Emmet, ‘Bank buildings in nineteenthcentury Ireland’, Irish Arts Review, 11, 1995, 157-62 O’Brien, Emmet, Bank Architecture in Ireland 17261910 (Unpublished PhD thesis, UCD 1991) O’Brien, Jacqueline, Desmond Guinness, Dublin.

A Grand Tour (London 1994) O’Dwyer, Frederick, Lost Dublin (Dublin 1981) Pevsner, Nikolaus, A History of Building Types (London 1976) Richardson, Douglas Scott, Gothic Revival Architecture in Ireland (London 1983). 2 vols.

Share, Bernard ed., Root and Branch Allied Irish Banks Yesterday, today, tomorrow (Dublin 1979) Shaw, Henry, The Dublin Pictorial Guide & Directory of 1850 (Belfast 1988) Sheaff, N., ‘Jarratt and Rococo’, Irish Arts Review I, no. 3 (Autumn, 1984), 51-2 Sheehy, Jeanne, ‘A respectable show’, Country Life (July 12, 1979), 82-3

68

BANK ARCHITECTURE: DOCUMENTARY SOURCES FOR FURTHER RESEARCH FROM THE IRISH ARCHITECTURAL ARCHIVE’S DICTIONARY OF IRISH ARCHITECTS Bank

Street, Number

Architect

Date

Savings Bank Northern Bank Royal Bank

Abbey St Lr Amiens Street Anglesea St, 31-3

Farrell, Isaac Wilmot, John Charles Geoghegan, Charles

1839 1906 1864

Royal Bank Royal Bank Royal Bank

Arran Quay, 24-5 Arran Quay, 24-5 Arran Quay, 24-5

Crowe Bros Geoghegan, Charles O’Connor, George Luke

1864 1864 1923-4

National Bank National Bank

Arran Quay, 33 Arran Quay, 33

Fuller, James Franklin Fuller & Jermyn

1905-7 1921-2

Munster & Leins Munster & Leins

Baggot St Lr, 2 Baggot St Lr, 2

Beckett & Harrington McDonnell & Dixon

1938 1953

Royal Bank

Baggot St Lr, 54

Geoghegan, Charles

1889

Ulster Bank

Baggot St Lr, 128

Mitchell, W.M. & Sons

1909

Ulster Bank Ulster Bank Munster & Leins Munster & Leins National Bank

Hanna, James A Macauley, Fredrick James McDonnell & Reid McDonnell & Dixon Fuller & Jermyn

1920-3 1920-3 1914 1954 1919

Millar, Adam Gerald Chayton

1931

National Bank

Baggot St Lr, 128 Baggot St Lr, 128 Baggot St Upr, 52 Baggot St Upr, 52 Baggot St Upr, Victorian Buildings Shelbourne Road, Ballsbridge Camden St Lr, 73-4

Fuller & Jermyn

1933

Ulster Bank

Camden St Lr, 79

Mitchell, William Marsfield

1897

Hibernian Bank Hibernian Bank Union Bank

Camden St Lr, 89 Camden St Lr, 89 Capel St, 37

Byrne, Ralph Henry Jones & Kelly Murray, William George

1928 1963 1863

Provincial Bank

Capel St, 40-1

Kaye-Parry & Ross

1899

Bank of Ireland

D O C U M E N TA RY S O U RC E S

Note Foundation stone laid 1839 Built to plan Rebuilding of house as bank

New Italian Gothic Branch New Italian Gothic branch New premises, involving demolition of old premises and extension into 25 New branch bank Additions or new premises

Adds & alts Adds & alts Remodelling of premises

Porch added Cut-stone Clerk of works for J.A. Hanna New branch Alts & extension Adds & additions New branch bank

MS Sources IAA

Additions Reconstruction Premises refitted to form branch office New? branch

F U RT H E R R E S E A RC H

Printed References Craig, Dublin, 319 IB 48, 30/6/1906, 505

MS list of plans in stable of Charles Geoghegan, 2/10/1896, in possession of Joe macEochagain, 2006 (IAA photocopy) IAA PKS B02/045 and A03 (April 1864, p44v)

IAA PKS 0891, B20/51, A07 (Dec 1905) Patrick Harrington. Front Elev. IAA: 009/039: Alan Kennedy. Front Elev. IAA: 0092/039; IAA PKS 0157 and A09 (March 1922).

IAA PKS 0029 IAA PKS 1038 (PKS 1577 may refer to this building or Baggot St Upr) MS list of plans in stable of Charles Geoghegan, 2/10/1896, in possession of Joe macEochagain, 2006 (IAA photocopy) Plans, elev., and specs., 1909 in IAA, McCurdy and Michell Collection, 82/49.77

DB 6, 1/5/1864, 87 DB 6, 1/5/1864, 87 B 22, 12/3/1864, 192 IB 65, 2/6/1923, 424; 66, 22/3/1924, 245

IB 48, 13/1/1906, 34; 49, 9/3/07, 157 B 64, 16/12/1922, 868

IB 31, 15/8/1889, 214

IB 62, 13/3/1920, 160; 65, 13/1/1923, 26 Illustrated in Architectural Review, May 1928 IAA PKS 0577 (may refer to Baggot St. Lr, 2) IAA PKS 0164 and A09 (March 1919) IAA PKS 0191. Drawings in IAA Bank of Ireland Collection Acc. 2006/65

Reconstruction for National Bank Alts.

FOR

IB 56, 19/12/1914, 689 IB 96, 22/5/1954, 509

IB 73, 21/11/1931, 1019 IB 75, 26/8/1933, 734; Patrick M. Delany, ‘Branch Bank Reconstruction’, Architectural Survey, 1961, 39

Plan, elevations & sections, 1897 in IAA: McCurdy and Michell Collection, 82/49.119 IB 70, 1928, 280 IB 105, 20/7/63, 569 DB 5, 15/2/1863, 33 IAA PKS 0808 and B19/08. Amended plans 1898, in IAA: McCurdy and Michell Collection, 79/1.23

69

70

B A N K A RC H I T E C T U R E

IN

DUBLIN –

Bank

Street, Number

Architect

Date

Provincial Bank

Capel St, 40-1

Mitchell, W.M. & Sons

1937;1951

La Touche Bank

Castle St

Jarratt, Joseph

1750s

La Touche Bank La Touche Bank La Touche Bank La Touche Bank Newcomen’s Bank

Castle St Castle St Castle St Castle St Castle St

Pearce, Edward Lovett Cramillion, Barthelemy Lilly, Charles Morrison, Richard Ivory, Thomas

1757 1802 1802ca 1781ca

Hibernian Bank

Castle St, 16

Caldbeck, William Francis

1856-7; 1862

National Bank Northern Bank Northern Bank

N Circular Rd, 371 S Circular Rd, 63-4 S Circular Rd, 78

Jermyn, Federick Herbert O’Connor, George Luke Geoghegan, Joseph Aloysius

1930 1925 1913

Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland National City Bank

College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green College Green, 10-11

Cockburn, Gilbert Kirk, Thomas Brown, Thomas A.W.B. Baker, Henry Aaron Robson, John Morrison, Richard Louch, Richard Lucius Johnston, Francis Thorp, Charles Johnston, Francis Smyth, Edward Smyth, John Flaxman, John Sithorpe, Henry & Son Millar & Symes Millar, Adam Gerald Chayton (Jack) Sibthorpe, Henry & Son Millar, Herbert Vivian (Toby) Donnelly & Martin

1803 1803 1803 1803 1803 1803 1803-8 1804 1808 1808 1808 1808 1863-5; 1870-1 1889 1919, 1924, 1925, 1926a, 1933 1936 1951, 1954 1943

Guinness & Mahon

College Green, 16-17

Donnelly, Moore & Keating

1930-1

A

H I S T O RY

TO

c.1940

D O C U M E N TA RY S O U RC E S

Note

MS Sources IAA

Repairs & alts,

IAA PKS A08 (Mar 1899); IAA: McCurdy and Michell Collection, 79/1.23 Jarratt Album, IAA Acc 84/51;

Elevation signed Craig attr.

Venus & Cupid ceiling Carpentry Adds & alts incl 3 storey wings For Sir William Newcomen

F U RT H E R R E S E A RC H

Printed References

David Dixon, The La Touche Dynasty: N. Sheaff, IAR, I, No.3, (Autumn 1984), 51 IAR, 12 (1996), 33 Joseph McDonnell, (1991), 13,21, Pls 71-3

NA/PRO 1A/58/125, Bryan Bolger papers

Work at and improvements New New branch bank Signed undated drawing

FOR

(Plans, sections, elevations) in IAA, Geoghegan Collection 80/32.N.1

Conversion of 10 & 11 into unified whole

E McParland et al., Morrison, 77, 78 (illus) E. McParland, Thomas Ivory. Architect; E McP, QBIGS, 17 (Jan-June 1974); D. O’Connor, ‘Thomas Ivory’, RIAI Yearbook, 1992, 72-3; D. Slattery, Irish Architecture, 140, Sept 1998, 47-51; Dublin: A Grand Tour; S O’Reilly & N Robinson, A New lease of life.

The Law Society Buildings at Blackhall Place (1990) DB 4, 15/11/1862, 208; M. Craig, Arch. Hist., 27 (1984), 424 IB 72, 18/1/1930, 67 IB 67, 8/8/1925, 649 IB 55, 20/8/1913, 563

IB 85, 8/5/1943, 181-2 (illus)

IAA PKS 0094 and A09 (June 1930)

IB 73, 10/10/1931, 884a; Architects’ Journal 73, 17/6/1931, 859; Ivy Frances Jones, The rise of a merchant bank (1974); Ruth McManus, Crampton Built (2008), 86 (illus)

71

72

B A N K A RC H I T E C T U R E

IN

DUBLIN –

Bank

Street, Number

Architect

Date

Guinness & Mahon

College Green, 17

Carroll, James Rawson

1881-3

Guinness & Mahon

College Green, 17

Perry & Reed

1878

Belfast Bank

College Green, 20-22

Lynn, William Henry

1893

Union Bank

College Green, 22

Drew, Thomas

1864-6

Union Bank

College Green, 22

Murray, William George

1864-6

Union Bank Hibernian Bank

College Green, 22 College Green, 22-27

Harrison, Charles William Murray, William George

1867 1864-1871

Hibernian Bank Hibernian Bank

College Green, 22-27 College Green, 22-27

Harrison, Charles William Drew, Sir Thomas

1871 1873-6

Hibernian Bank

College Green, 22-27

Byrne, R.H.

1925-8

Ulster Bank Ulster Bank

College Green, 31 College Green, 32-3

Beckett & Harrington Geoghegan, Charles

1962 1887

Ulster Bank

College Green, 32-3

Farrall, James Joseph

1887

Ulster Bank

College Green, 32-3

Mitchell, W.M. & Sons

1887

Ulster Bank

College Green, 32-3

Drew, Sir Thomas

1888-91

Ulster Bank Ulster Bank National Bank

College Green, 32-3 College Green, 32-3 College Green, 34

Hanna, James A Beckett & Harrington Farrell, Isaac

1923 1958; 1960 1842

National Bank National Bank

College Green, 34 College Green, 34

Barnes, William H Caldbeck, William Francis

1842 1856; 1862

A

H I S T O RY

TO

c.1940

D O C U M E N TA RY S O U RC E S

Note

MS Sources IAA

New premises £3,124

IAA PKS B10/26 (pp734,789); B11/6(p795), A06(Sept 1881); A07, p196

Proposed design for new premises See Brett & IB In association with WG Murray In association with T Drew £7,300 Ext & internal Sculpture Italian Gothic. Sheephouse limestone with Portland stone dressings. Built as Union Bank but handed over to the Hibernian Bank eight months after opening. By WGM in association with T Drew.

Carvings C.W. Harrison Sculpture Additions Extension into St. Andrew Street over £50,000 Reconstruction for Ulster Bank Competition entrant

Report… condition of planning permission (Jan 2002), 2 vols., IAA: 2002/114

IAA PKS A03 (March 1864, p71v)

IAA PKS B06/08, B06a/12, B07/22 WH Byrne & Sons, Drawings, 1926-7 Collection, Acc. 2006/142

Winner of competition, assisted by RC Orpen

Enlargements Alts & adds Superintending architect for erection of building Built, I Farrell architect on site Alterations 1856; won design competition 1862

F U RT H E R R E S E A RC H

73

Printed References

Architect, 21, 11/1/1879, 21 (illus. in supplement) E. M. Cosgrave, Visitors Guide to Dublin, 19, 1894; IB 52, 15/10/1910, 640-41

DB 24, 5/5/1866, 332; DB 6, 15/3/1864, 44; Jeremy Williams (1994), 126-7.

IB 9, 1/4/1867, 90 DB 6, 15/3/1864, 44; IB 9, 5/10/1867, 275; 13, 15/5/1871, 134 (illus); B 24, 5/5/1866, 332

IB 13, 15/5/1871, 134 IB 15, 1/7/1873, 210; Designs exh. RHA 1877, no.316, 1879, no.314; J. Williams, 126-7 IB 67, ?, 1925, 285 IB 69, 10/12/1927, 897; 70, 1928, 280; Ruth McManus, Crampton Built (2008), 146 IB 104, 14/4/1962, 285

MS list of plans in stable of Charles Geoghegan, 2/10/1896, in possession of Joe macEochagain, 2006 (IAA photocopy)

JJF placed 2nd in competition Competition entrant?

FOR

RHA, 1888, No. 481; IB 31, 15/4/1889, 103 (illus); 53, 30/9/1911, 672 Alternate perspective view, plans etc in IAA: McCurdy and Michell Collection, 82/49.4 Design Exh. RHA 1888, no. 407, 478 and 1890, no. 51; RSA 1911, no. 467; IB 30, 1/5/1888, 121 (illus), 127; 31, 5/4/1889, 110; 33, 15/1/1891, 18, 19 (illus). Jubilee No. 1909, 34 (illus).; B 59, 13/9/1890, 214; 61, 19/12/1891, 473; ‘3 interiors’, RIAI Bulletin, 51, Apr/May 1985, 21-4; Ulster Bank Limited in Dublin, 1861-1961 IAA: RP.D.80.1; J. Williams, 127-8 IB 65, 13/1/1923, 26 IB 100, 1/11/1958, 801; 102, 6/2/1960, 83 Pettigrew & Oulton’s, Dublin Almanac (1847); ‘Annals of Dublin’ (Nov 1842); M. Craig, Dublin, 322 DB 4, 15/5/, 1/6, 15/11/1862, 125, 141, 288; 5, 1/9, 1/11/1863, 148, 182; B 20, 19/7/1862, 512 M. Craig, Architectural History, 27 (1984), 424

74

B A N K A RC H I T E C T U R E

IN

DUBLIN –

Bank

Street, Number

Architect

Date

National Bank

College Green, 34

Geoghegan, Charles

1862

National Bank

College Green, 34

Geoghegan, Charles

1888-1890

National Bank National Bank Ulster Bank

College Green, 34 College Green, 34 College Green, 36

Fuller & Jermyn Jermyn, Fredrick Herbert Murray, William George

1924 1925 1861

Ulster Bank

College Green, 36

Jackson, Thomas & Son

1873

Provincial Bank

College St, 1-2

Murray, William George

1862-4

Provincial Bank

College St, 1-2

Lynn, Samuel Ferres

1864

Provincial Bank Provincial Bank Provincial Bank

College St, 1-2 College St, 1-2 College St, 3-4

Stafford, Arthur James Mitchell, W.M. & Sons Mitchell, W.M. & Sons

1937 1937 1951-7

Royal Bank

Cornmarket, 28-9

Geoghegan, Charles

1866

Bank of Ireland

Crumlin Rd, 177

Millar & Symes

1930

Bank of Ireland Munster & Leins Munster & Leins Hibernian Bank

Crumlin Rd, 177 Crumlin Rd, 219-231 Crumlin Rd, 219-231 Dame St

Millar, Herbert Vivian (Toby) Beckett & Harrington Harrington, Cyril Ashlin Byrne, Ralph Henry

1951 1945 1945 1926

Munster & Leins

Dame St, 7-9

Deane, Thomas Newenham

1870-74

Munster & Leins

Dame St, 7-9

Harrison, Charles William

1870-74

Munster & Leins

Dame St, 7-10

Dixon, William Albert

1927-8

Munster & Leins

Dame St, 7-10

Harrison, C.W. & Sons

1927-8

Munster & Leins

Dame St, 7-10

McDonnell & Dixon

1957-60

National Land Bank

Dame St, 10

Sheridan, George Patrick

1921

A

H I S T O RY

TO

c.1940

D O C U M E N TA RY S O U RC E S

FOR

F U RT H E R R E S E A RC H

Note

MS Sources IAA

Printed References

Won competition for rebuilding. Work not carried out until 1889-90

Drawings (on paper watermarked 1858) in IAA, Charles Geoghegan Drawings, 80/32.1.2 (see Griffin & Lincoln, Drawings from the IAA, 59, no.29) MS list of plans in stable of Charles Geoghegan, 2/10/1896, in possession of Joe macEochagain, 2006 (IAA photocopy) IAA 0075 and A09 (Dec 1924)

RHA 1863, no. 460, 471; DB 5, 15/6/1863, 101

Completely remodelled, Sculptors: Pearse & Sharpe Alterations to Board Room Extension of head office Conversion of premises to form Ulster Bank New front & interior alts.

New bank on site of Irish Institution £36,000.

Subject to lawsuit 1869

New branch office

Plans? In collection of Mrs D Millar, 1976 New branch

IB 30, 1/4/1888, 91; 31, 1/1, 15/8/1889, 14, 208; 32, 1/4/, 1/5/1890, 81, 87 (illus), 104 Ruth McManus, Crampton Built (2008), 53 Ruth McManus, Crampton Built (2008), 53 IB 67, 18/4/1925, ?; 76, 1/12/1934, 1038 DB 3, 1/11/1861, 666; 4, 15/4/1862, 95 IB 15, 15/10/1873, 281

IAA PKS B05/10; A03 (Nov 1862, Oct 1868 – Mar 1870, pp50v, 119v, 120v 121v, L1 (pp245, 247-8, 250-1, 304)

Sculpture in pediment Work Work Alts (3 and 4 College St)

75

DB 4, 1/7/1862, 165, 312; 9, 1/5/1867, 108, 109 (illus); 11, 1/1, 15/12/1869, 12, 269, 294; 12, 15/2/1870, 47; 13, 1/9/1871, 226, 227 (illus). B 22, 7/5/1864, 338-9 B 22, 7/5/1864, 338; DB 6, 15/5/1864, 100; IAR, 1989-90, 258-62.

IAA PKS 0025 IAA PKS 0025 Drawings etc 1951-7 in IAA McCurdy & Mitchell Coll. Bin VII, Roll 49,b MS list of plans in stable of Charles Geoghegan, DB 8, 1/4/1866, 93 2/10/1896, in possession of Joe macEochagain, 2006 (IAA photocopy)

IAA PKS 1045 IB 87, 27/1/1945, 33 (photos) IB 87, 27/1/1945, 34

Proposed extension Completion of premises designed by his father, carvings by Harrison Fine carvings by Harrison

Coloured Dyeline Print, 1926, in Bank of Ireland drawings collection in IAA Acc. 2006/65 IAA PKS B05/25; B06/02

Enlargement.

Carvings by Harrison & Sons Enlargements, carvings

Adds & alts Reconstruction. 1st floor taken out to provide spacious ground floor office…

IAA PKS 1040

IB 12, 1/10, 15/11/1870, 228, 264; 16, 1/3, 15/4/1874, 76, 120; Jubilee No. 1909, 8 (illus); B 31, 17/5/1873, 390; Architect 13, 2/1/1875, 8 (illus) F O’Dwyer, Deane and Woodward, 382 IB 69, 5/3/1927, 162; 70, 18/2/1928, 148; advertisement in AAI Green Book 1927-8, 22 and 1929-30, 9.

IB 69, 5/3/1927, 162; 70, 18/2/1928, 148; advertisement in AAI Green Book 1927-8, 22 and 1929-30, 9.

IB 102, 19/3, 1/10/1960, 197, 733 (illus); IB 99, 5/10/1957, 793 IB 63, 12/2/1921, 102

76

B A N K A RC H I T E C T U R E

IN

DUBLIN –

Bank

Street, Number

Architect

Date

Farrow’s Bank

Dame St, 38

Moore, George Tighe

1910

National Bank Hibernian Bank National Bank Munster & Leins Munster & Leins Munster & Leins Munster & Leins Bank of Ireland National Bank Hibernian Bank

Donnybrook, 46 Dorset St Upr, 85 & 86 Drumcondra Rd, 43 Drumcondra Rd Lr, 140 Drumcondra Rd Lr, 140 Drumcondra Rd Lr, 140 Emmet Rd, Inchicore, 120 Fairview, 9 Fairview, 26 Fairview, 3-4

Fuller & Jermyn Byrne, William Henry Fuller & Jermyn Beckett & Harrington Beckett & Harrington Harrington, Cyril Ashlin McDonnell & Dixon Millar, Adam Gerald Chayton Fuller & Jermyn Leonard, Simon Aloysius

1931 1898 1928-9 1927 1940; 1947 1940 1919 1939 1928 1950

Central Bank of Ireland Central Bank of Ireland Royal Bank

Foster Place Foster Place Foster Place, 3

Alcock, Joseph Patrick Beckett & Harrington Geoghegan, Charles

1953 1953 18589-9; 1862

Royal Bank Currency Commission

Foster Place, 3 Foster Place, 6

O’Callaghan & Webb Hopcraft, Robert George

1917 1929

Currency Commission

Foster Place, 6

Byrne, Thomas Joseph

1931ca

Dublin Savings Bank

Francis St, 149

Robinson, Keefe & Devane

1949

National Bank National Bank Royal Bank

Georges St S Gt, 64-5 Georges St S Gt, 64-5 Grafton St, 64

Fuller & Jermyn Jermyn, Frederick Herbert Ashworth & Smith

1928 1929 1931

Munster & Leins Provincial Bank

Grafton St, 100-101 Grafton St., 104

McDonnell & Dixon O’Callaghan & Webb

1932 1912-3

Provincial Bank Provincial Bank

Grafton St, 104 Grafton St, 104

Ashworth, Charles Herbert Mitchell, W.M. & Sons

1920 1935-6

Northern Bank Northern Bank

Grafton St, 114 Grafton St, 114-115

Brown, John Hubert Lynn, William Henry

1965 1902-3

A

H I S T O RY

TO

c.1940

D O C U M E N TA RY S O U RC E S

Note

MS Sources IAA

Alterations for conversion into head office WH Byrne, drawings Adds & alts Conversion of premises New branch bank New, IB illus.

New branch bank New branch £6,156 Neo-Georgian. WH Bryne & Sons Drawings 1950 New office block and vaults New office block & vaults

Improvements and repairs Remodelling of existing Francis Johnston building for OPW. Included filling in of archway and opening ground floor side windows, creating new central hall etc. ?remodelling

Printed References

IAA PKS 0192, A09 (Apr 1931) IB 73, 4/7/1931, 605, R. McManus, CB (2008), 95 IAA, WH Byrne Drawings Collection Acc. 2006/142 IAA PKS 0100, A09 (Nov 1929) Ruth McManus, Crampton Built (2008), 85 IAA PKS 9125, A09 (April 1927) IB 69, 25/6/1927, 474 IAA PKS 0135, 0262 IB 82, 23/11/1940, 699 (illus) IB 61, 20/12/1919, 581 IAA PKS 0256 IAA PKS 1010 and A09 (Feb 1828) IB 104, 3/3/1962, 165 IAA, WH Byrne Drawings Collection, 1066

Photo in IAA Acc 92/75

IT, 8/7/1966 (obit) IB 95, 18/7/1953, 755 ‘Isometrical drawing, showing the new method of shoring up the walls of the Royal Bank, Foster Place’, Exhibition of Fine and Ornamental Arts, Dublin 1861, no. 329; B 16, 13/2, 24/7/1858, 111, 508; 17, 12/11/1859, 750; 18, 7/7/1860, 436; DB 1, 1/11/1859, 144; 4, 15/11/1862, 288; S. Rothery, Root and Branch; John Donovan, The Hibernian United Services Club (1984).

IB 59, 7/7/1917, 340 RIYA Yearbook 1948, 34 (obit); Ruth McManus, Crampton Built (2008), 72 (illus)

Architect & Building News, 126, 19/6/1931, 411 (photo only of façade) IB 91, 19/3/1949, 260 IAA PKS 1007 and A09 (Sept 1928)

Alts and renovations Opened Summer 1904

F U RT H E R R E S E A RC H

IB 52, 9/7/1910, 443

Alts. To Branch bank on corner of Thomas St. New Reconstruction to form new branch Alts to premises for M&L Bank Rebuilding of premises of Hodges Figgis & Co. ?as a Bank?

Adds & alts Proposed alterations

FOR

IB 70, 21/7/1928, 634 IB 71, 15/5/1929, 464 IB 73, 1/8, 15/8, 19/12/1931, 686, 727, 1101; Susan Keating, IADS, iv, 2001, 143-69 IB 74, 5 & 19/11/1932, 994, 1057 IB 54, 16/3, 27/4/, 26/10/1912, 169, 244, 601; 55, 4/1/1912, 23

IAA PKS 0165 Drawings etc. 1935-6 in IAA McCurdy & Mitchell Collection. 79/17.24 IAA PKS 0396, 1227 IB 44, 30/1, 6/11/1902, 1020, 1462; 45, 13/2, 21/3/1903, 1042, 1756; 46, 10/9, 22/10/1904, 598, 706

77

78

B A N K A RC H I T E C T U R E

IN

DUBLIN –

Bank

Street, Number

Architect

Date

Northern Bank Munster & Leins Savings Bank Savings Bank Finlay’s Bank

Grafton St, 114-115 Inchicore James St James St Jervis St

Geoghegan, Joseph Aloysius McDonnell & Dixon Johnston, Richard Carmichael, Hugh Woodgate, Robert

1904 1943 1853 1853 1800

Munster & Leins National Bank National Bank

Finglas, Main St Marino Mart, 26 Marino Mart, 26

Robinson, Keefe & Devane Fuller & Jermyn Jermyn, Frederick Herbert

1956 1928 1928

Munster & Leinst Bank of Ireland

Morehampton Rd, 69 North Wall Quay, 13

McDonnell & Dixon Symes, Sandham

1948 1878

Ulster Bank

O’Connell St Lr, 4

Hanna, James A

1923

Hibernian Bank

O’Connell St Lr, 6-7

Leonard, Simon Aloysius

1951

Munster & Leins

O’Connell St Lr, 10-11

McDonnell, Laurence Aloysius

1916-19

Munster & Leins

O’Connell St Lr, 10-11

Power, Albert George

1919

Munster & Leins Munster & Leins Hibernian Bank

O’Connell St Lr, 10-11 O’Connell St Lr, 10-11 O’Connell St Lr, 12-13

McDonnell & Dixon McDonnell & Dixon Deane, Thomas Newenham

1924-5 1954 1872

Hibernian Bank

O’Connell St Lr, 12-13

Harrison, Charles William

1878

Hibernian Bank

O’Connell St Lr, 12-13

O’Neill & Byrne

1878

Hibernian Bank

O’Connell St Lr, 12-13

Byrne, Ralph Henry

1916-19

A

H I S T O RY

TO

c.1940

D O C U M E N TA RY S O U RC E S

Note

MS Sources IAA

JAG clerk of works to WH Lynn New premises just completed Awarded 2nd place in competition ‘I am engaged to build next Summer a Banking House for Messrs. Finlay and Co. in Dublin New Bank IAA PKS 1010 and PKS A09 (Feb 1928)

Adds & alts New branch bank opened 1/5/1878. Three storey of Ballyknockan Granite.

Manager’s Quarters upstairs.

Office fitted with counters of Domongo mahogany and floor tiled in ‘a neat and sombre pattern’ In destroyed area 1916, nearly complete 1923 Conversion of cinema into bank.

WH Byrne & Sons Drawings, 1951 In destroyed area 1916.

New premises on corner of Lr. Abbey St. (Originally proposed for 20 Sackville St Upr?).

Cost £20,000. Opened Dec 1919 or Jan 1920 Relief over main entrance and series of heads on upper façade Extension into 39 Abbey St Alts Shops and Dwellings.

Converted into Hibernian Bank 1878 Elaborately carved entrance doorway Former ‘Gin Palace’ of W.G. Mooney, ‘suitably remodelled’ to form new branch bank.

Opened Summer 1878.

Elaborately carbed doorway executed by C.W. Harrison WH Byrne & Sons, drawings, 1916-18

IAA PKS 1037 Design signed and dated 1878, in BoI drawing collection. Photos. Plan by Syndham Symes. IAA Neg (7/433) IAA Bank of Ireland Drawings Collection Acc2006/065

FOR

F U RT H E R R E S E A RC H

Printed References IB 44, 23/10/1902, 1444; 45, 10/9/1904, 598 IB 85, 10/4/1943, 146 B 11, 26/2, 22/10/1853, 141 Casey, 663 Letter from RW to Soane, 18/11/1799.

Sir John Soane Museum Archive: Private Correspondence XV.A.2.5 IB 98, 15/12/1956, 1141 IB 104,3/6/1962, 165 IB 70, 23/6/1928, 550; Patrick M. Delany, Architectural Survey, 1960, 24-5 IB 20, 1/5/1878, 141

IB 65, 13/1, 10/2/1923, 26, 101 IB 93, 26/5/1951, 546 IAA WH Byrne Drawings Collection, 1067 IB 58, 10/6/1916, 259; 59, 3/3,17/3,28/4, 29/9/1917, 101, 125, 207, 493; 60, 20/7/1918, 368; 62, 3/1/1920, 17; Building News 112, 2/5/1917, 389

IAA PKS 0578, 1039

IB 61, 3/5/1919, 205; Snoddy (1996), 398; Sighle Bhreathnach-Lynch, ‘Albert Power’, IAR, 1990-1, 111-114 IB 66, 29/11/1924, 1017; 67, 7/2/1925, 105 IB 96, 31/7/1954, 749 IB 14, 15/9/1872, 254, 259 (illus); E.M Cosgrove & Strangeways, Visitors Guide to Dublin, 19; O’Dwyer (1997), 382 IB 20, 1/7/1878, 188 IB 20, 1/7/1878, 188; J.J. Tracy, ‘A dissertation on the buildings of John O’Neill and O’Neill & Byrne architects, 1862-1883’, diss. Masters of Architecture QUB 1987, 43, 80 , 229, ill 44

IAA WH Byrne Drawings Collection 1067

Building News 112, 7/3/1917, 221; IB 59, 3/3, 29/9/1917, 101, 493, 500; IB 61, 22/11/1919, 533; 63, 10/12/1921, 611 (illus); 64, 12/8/1922, 555 (illus); 81, ?, 1939, 308 (illus);

79

80

B A N K A RC H I T E C T U R E

IN

DUBLIN –

Bank

Street, Number

Architect

Date

Hibernian Bank Bank of Ireland

O’Connell St Lr, 12-13 O’Connell St Lr, 28

Harrison, C.W. & Sons Harrison, C.W. & Sons

1927 1919-21

Bank of Ireland

O’Connell St Lr, 28

McDonnell & Dixon

1919-21

Munster & Leinst

O’Connell St Lr, 30

O’Callaghan, John Joseph

1896

Provincial Bank

O’Connell St Upr, 37

Batchelor & Hicks

1921-2

Provincial Bank

O’Connell St Upr, 37

Mitchell, W.M. & Sons

1936

Royal Bank Royal Bank Royal Bank

O’Connell St Upr, 63-64 O’Connell St Upr, 63 O’Connell St Upr, 63

Donnelly, Moore & Keatinge Geoghegan, Charles Geoghegan, Charles

1925 1869 1874

National Irish Bank

66 O’Connell St Upr

Bryce, David

1853-61

Bank of Ireland

Ormond Quay Upr, 1-3

Millar & Symes

1909

Bank of Ireland

Ormond Quay Upr, 1-3

Millar, Adam Gerald Chayton

1919

Bank of Ireland Munster & Leins

Ormond Quay Upr, 1-3 Palace St., 6

Millar, Herbert Vivian (Toby) Deane, Thomas Newenham

1956 1874

National Bank National Bank National Bank Munster & Leins Ulster Bank Munster & Leins National Bank

Parnell St, 165 Parnell St, 165 Pearse St, 43, 43B Phibsborough Rd, 162-3 Ranelagh, 63 Rathfarnham Rathmines Rd Lr

Ashlin & Coleman Unknown architect Fuller & Jermyn McDonnell & Dixon Beckett & Harrington Beckett & Harrington Butler, William

1913 1926 1927 1961 1961 1959 1897

National Bank

Rathmines Rd Lr

Butler, Frederick Augustus

1899

National Bank Belfast Bank

Rathmines Rd Lr Rathmines Rd Lr, 12-17

Fuller & Jermyn Craig, Vincent

1922 1899-1900

Royal Bank

Rathmines Rd Lr, 76

Geoghegan, Charles

1899

Royal Bank Bank of Ireland Munster & Leins

Rathmines Rd Lr, 76 Rathmines Rd Lr, 211 Rathmines Rd Lr, 224 & 228

Donnelly, Moore, Keefe & Robinson Millar, Adam Gerald Chayton Downes & Meehan

1921 1919 1961-3

A

H I S T O RY

TO

c.1940

D O C U M E N TA RY S O U RC E S

Note

MS Sources IAA

Carving on rebuilt bank Carving on new premises New premises

Drawings 1919, IAA Bank of Ireland Drawings Collection Acc 2006/065 IAA PKS 0148, 1049, B22/32

Conversion of existing premises into bank New Works at same Structural improvements ‘nearly complete’ in Sept 1869 ? new premises

For Standard Life Assurance Company Plans for new bank, built & destroyed 1916?

New bank branch £20,435

FOR

F U RT H E R R E S E A RC H

Printed References AJ 58, 10/10/1923, 535-539; advertisement in AAI Green Book 1927-8, 22 Advertisment in AAI Green Book 1927-8, 22 Advertisment in AAI Green Book 1927-8, 22 and 1929-30, 9 IB 62, 17/7/1920, 474

IB 38, 15/9/1896, 195 IB 63, 9/4/1921, 234; 64, 9/9/1922, 618; Ruth McManus, Crampton Built (2008), 52, 53 (illus) Drawings etc in IAA McCurdy & Mitchell Collection.79/17, Bin 1, Roll 44

MS list of plans in stable of Charles Geoghegan, 2/10/1896, in possession of Joe macEochagain, 2006 (IAA photocopy) Bank in 1952; 1970s ground floor

IB 67, 11/7/1925, 570 IB 11, 1/7, 15/9/1869, 153, 213.

B 32, 14/11/1874, 958

Casey, 217

Diary of R.C. Millar IAA PKS B22/30 and A09 (June 1919) IAA Bank of Ireland Drawings Collection Acc. 2006/065, Folder 10

Extensions Completion of premises designed by his father Extension on Cavendish Row

IB 61, 20/12/1919, 581; Building News 117, 26/12/1919, vii IB 98, 11/2/1956, 111 IB 12, 1/10, 15/11/1870, 228, 264; 16, 1/3, 15/4/1874, 76, 120 IB 55, 13/9, 25/11/1913, 595, 683

Alts Alts Alts Alts Plans by ‘Mr. William Butler of Mountjoy Square’ With Frederick Hicks.

IAA PKS 0122, A09 (Mar 1927)

Adds & alts New branch bank ‘to be built’, Oct 1899, ‘nearly complete’, 1900

IAA PKS 0160 and A09 (Oct 1922)

Conversion of premises

MS list of plans in stable of Charles Geoghegan, 2/10/1896, in possession of Joe macEochagain, 2006 (IAA photocopy)

Extension New bank

IB 63, 18/1/1921, 733; 64, 28/1/1922, 54 IAA PKS 0155, B22/23, A09 (Oct 1919); IB 61, 20/12/1919, 581 Drawings1919, in IAA, Bank of Ireland collection IB 103, 16/9/1961, 733; 104, 20/1/1962, 49; (Acc 2006/65) 105, 8/6/1963, 433

IB 103, 10/6/1961, 459 IB 103, 18/3/1961, 207 IB 96, 17/7/1959, 703 IB 39, 15/8/1897, 164 IB 41, 1/6/1899, 59; 44, 6/11/1902, 1461; Who’s Who in Architecture, 1923, 123 IB 41, 15/10/1899, 157; 42, 15/7/1900, 423; 43, 16/1/1901, 603 IB 31, 15/8/1889, 214

81

82

B A N K A RC H I T E C T U R E

IN

DUBLIN –

Bank

Street, Number

Architect

Date

Provincial Bank Bank of Ireland

Richmond St Sth, 61 St Mobhi Rd, Glasnevin, 112

Hicks, Frederick George Millar, Adam Gerald Chayton

1923 1932-5

National Land Bank

College Green, 10

Cullen, Thomas Joseph

1920

Provincial Bank

St Stephens Green, 12

Carroll & Batchelor

1902

Provincial Bank

St Stephens Green, 12

Mitchell, W.M. & Sons

1919

Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland

St Stephens Green, 39-40 St Stephen’s Green, 39-40

Ashworth, Charles Herbert Millar, Adam Gerald Chayton

1912 1924

National Bank

Suffolk St, 6-7

Fuller & Jermyn

1925

National Bank

Suffolk St, 7

Geoghegan, Charles

National Bank National Bank Royal Bank

Talbot St, 48 Talbot St, 48 Talbot St, 79A

Fuller & Jermyn Jermyn, Federick Herbert Butler, Rudolph Maximillian

1929 1930 1928-9

Munster & Leins

Terenure Rd (Rathgar), 2

McDonnell & Dixon

1923

Munster & Leins National Bank

Terenure Rd E (Rathgar), 7-9 Terenure Rd N (Terenure), 101-2

Harrington, Cyril Ashlin Beckett & Harrington

1947 1944

Bank of Ireland

Terenure

Millar & Symes

1932-3

Bank of Ireland Royal Bank Dublin Savings Bank

Terenure Terenure Thomas St, 79

Millar, Adam Gerald Chayton O’Callaghan & Webb Robinson, Keefe & Devane

1931 1911 1949

Hibernian Bank

Thomas St, 84-5

Byrne, William Henry

1902

Hibernian Bank

Tyrconnell Rd (Inchicore), 2-6 Leonard, Simon Aloysius

1946

Bank Buildings

Westmoreland St, 1-3

Millar & Symes

1935

Union Bank of Ireland

(West side) Westmoreland St, 11

Lyons, John Joseph

1862

Union Bank of Ireland

Westmoreland St, 11

Murray, William George

1867

A

H I S T O RY

TO

c.1940

D O C U M E N TA RY S O U RC E S

Note

MS Sources IAA

Alterations for new branch bank Adds & Alts

New branch bank Alts. to fittings Adds & alts.

Seven printed references.

Plans of same by CG

Adds & alts

Drawings in IAA, JJ Cullen Collection, 85/74; photocopy of elevation and plan C167(111) Drawings, 1902, in IAA McCurdy & Mitchell coll. 79/17.1/51 IAA PKS 0974, B22/27, A09 (May 1919); Drawings, specifications, corr., 1919-54, in IAA McCurdy & Mitchell coll. 79/17.1 IAA Bank of Ireland Drawings Collection Acc. 2006/165, Folder 20; IAA PKS 0918, B21/73, A09 (Feb 1912) IAA PKS 0077, A09 (May 1925)

MS list of plans in stable of Charles Geoghegan, 2/10/1896, in possession of Joe macEochagain, 2006 (IAA photocopy) IAA PKS 0099, A09 (Nov 1929)

Reconstruction Alts under supervision of R Guise Brown New New bank

New branch £7,794

83

Printed References

IB 44, 18/12/1902, 1515

Building News 104, 11/4/1913, 5/2, 105, 26/12/ 1013, 923; R. McManus, Crampton Built (2008), 27 IB 67, 27/6/1925, 522; Patrick M. Delany, Architectural Survey, 1965, 36; Donnelly Turpin, Architecture Ireland, 215, March 2006, 38-9, 40-1; Michael Scott, Plan, Oct 2005, 6; Ellen Rowley, Architecture Ireland, 215, March 2006, 42

IB 72, 7/6/1930, 519 Ruth McManus, Crampton Built (2008), 85-86 IB 70, 21/1, 31/3/1928, 69, 279; 71, 8/6/1929, 535; 74, 23/4/1932, 371 IB 65, 16/6/23, 466 IB 89, 17/5/1947, 356

Information from Garry Miley, Limerick, citing set of signed drawings, dated 1944, in AIB Property Division archive Drawings dated 1932 in Bank of Ireland files.

Record for payment for plans, 1932, in collection of Mrs D Millar, 1976

Temporary bank offices New branch premises Alts to branch on corner of Frances St New premises opened in 1902.

WH Byrne & Sons Drawings 1902. IAA WH Byrne Drawings Coll. 1067 New neo-Georgian bank branch. Designs dated 1946 in IAA, WH Byrne & Sons drawings collections, 1066

Conversion of premises into bank office New front

F U RT H E R R E S E A RC H

IB 65, 21/4/1923, 301 IB 74, 7/3/1932, 440; 77, 6/4/1935, 269; The Irish Times, 24 Jan 1935

New branch bank Proposed alts.

FOR

IB 74, 23/4, 3/12/1932, 392, 1094; 75, 11/3/1933, 201.

IB 73, 4/7/1931, 605 IB 53, 10/6/1911, 397, 398; 54, 3/2/1912, 68 IB 91, 19/3/1949, 260 IB 44, 3/7/1902, 1306

Ruth McManus, Crampton Built (2008), 165-6 IB 77, 15/6/1935, 502 (illus); Obit.

Of H.V. Millar in RIAI Yearbook, 1959, 10 DB 4, 15/10/1962, 260 IB 9, 15/9/1867, 243

84

B A N K A RC H I T E C T U R E

IN

DUBLIN –

A

H I S T O RY

TO

c.1940

Provincial Bank College Green, later AIB, now the Westin Hotel. The dramatic ceiling in the banking hall. Photograph by C. Duggan