Centra

Attached three-bay three-storey over basement and with attic accommodation commercial building, built c.1880, with recent shopfront to front (south) elevation. Now in use as commercial outlet and café. Mansard roof, partially hidden behind stepped rendered parapet. Masonry cornice over smooth render to stepped façade, panelled pilasters dividing bays to second floor, moulded masonry cornice over panelled fascia having paired scrolled brackets, and moulded masonry string course. Segmental-headed and round-headed openings with moulded masonry surrounds, one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows, continuous rendered sill courses, windows to first floor having moulded masonry arcade supported on pilasters, continuous moulded masonry sill course and vermiculated aprons. Located on south side of Dame Street at junction with South Great Georges Street.

This site was occupied by M. O’Keeffe ‘nursery and seedman’ in the 1860s, and by J. Leetch, China importer, in 1884. The increase in value from £68l to £95l may indicate the building on the site was rebuilt between these dates. Skilled artisanship is evident in the stucco detail of the window mouldings and cornices, which lend textural variation and artistic interest to the façade. Dame Street derives its name from a dam that powered a mill on the River Poddle. It was one of the principal streets of the city in the eighteenth century leading from the Parliament House (now Bank of Ireland) to the Castle. The street was widened and remodelled by Samuel Sproule and Charles Tarrant of the Wide Street Commissioners in the late eighteenth century. As commercial buildings and financial institutions were introduced to the street in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century many of the structures were rebuilt or remodelled.