Applicants for social and affordable housing may have the opportunity to live within a terrace of mid 19th century Coast Guard “cottages” which are being restored by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown county council.
As The Sunday Independent reports, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council plans to refurbish four of the two-storey cottages, which were constructed in the mid-1800s at Dun Laoghaire Harbour.
As Afloat reported in December 2020, the aim is to “bring them back into use for social housing”, and the scheme is due to be completed in late 2022.
“Kingstown” was the address and customs officers were among first residents in the two-storey cottages after they were constructed in 1845.
The stone used for the dwellings was largely granite, which had been transported via the “Metals” rail line from Dalkey quarry to build the harbour with its distinctive east and west piers.
The “asylum harbour” was designed to give safe refuge to ships caught by bad weather, sandbars and difficult tides en route to Dublin Port.
The cottages were built next to the Coast Guard station and later passed into the control of the British Army. After independence, the buildings were used by the Army - including the Fórsa Cosanta Áitiúil (FCA) or Reserve Defence Forces and Naval reserve, An Slua Muirí.
They were then acquired by Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company, which commissioned restoration of the cottage sash windows and doors in 2014.
The terrace of houses were earmarked for possible restoration in the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Heritage Management Plan of 2011.
The plan highlighted the fine craftsmanship of much of the harbour structure but an “atmosphere of neglect” in the Old Harbour and Coal Harbour quarter.
The architects praised the “fine architecture” and “very high level of craftsmanship” and good stonework found in the “snecked stone boundary walls and also in the fabric of the Coastguard buildings”.
They described the buildings as part of an “important historic and architecturally fine complex” within Dún Laoghaire’s unique cultural heritage.
Independent senator Victor Boyhan, a former member of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, welcomed the conversion of the harbour properties to social and affordable housing.
“This is in line with Government policy, putting the real estate of the harbour into good use and putting a new living heart into Dún Laoghaire harbour,” he said.
Read more in The Sunday Independent here