A Georgian mansion in Dublin that inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula and is mentioned in James Joyce’s Ulysses is to be assessed for dereliction, after lying vacant for almost 30 years.
It comes as local representatives make renewed calls for the compulsory purchase order (CPO) of the house, to bring it back into State ownership and make it the ‘jewel in the crown in the north side’.
Aldborough House, the second largest private city townhouse in Dublin after Leinster House, has stood on Portland Row in the north inner city since the end of the 18th century.
A Georgian mansion in Dublin that inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula and is mentioned in James Joyce’s Ulysses is to be assessed for dereliction, after lying vacant for almost 30 years
Across 200 years it served as a residence, a school, an army barracks, and the offices of various State bodies.
But the house has lain vacant since 1999, with only minimal restoration work carried out since it was bought by developers in 2014 – despite the owners receiving tens of thousands in State grants.
Councillor Niall Ring asked Dublin City Council (DCC) last month for a comprehensive update on the property, and requested that it be inspected with a view to placing it on the Derelict Sites Register.
This would subject owners to a levy of 7 per cent of the property’s market value, with interest of 1.25 per cent per month on unpaid levies, and would allow DCC to take steps to CPO the property.
DCC told Cllr Ring that its Derelict Sites Office ‘will arrange for an inspection of the property to be carried out and determine [the] next steps under the statutory processes’.
He also asked how much the current developers – Reliance Investments Ltd, an Isle of Man–registered company linked to Pat O’Donnell – have received in grants to restore the property, and whether there is any mechanism for clawing back grants if a private owner ‘accepts State funds to stabilise a protected structure but continues to leave it vacant and decaying’.
DCC did not respond to this aspect, but documents seen by the Irish Mail on Sunday show the developer has received well over €100,000 in funding from both the Department of Heritage and DCC since 2014.
The current owners had been granted planning permission to develop the premises as offices, but that expired in 2023.
Cllr Ring told the MoS: ‘It’s an iconic building and could be a fabulous building, and without being parochial, if this were on the south side, something would have been done with it by now.’
The former lord mayor of Dublin continued: ‘There were suggestions a few years ago the HSE were going to take it over as a nursing home.
‘There was a suggestion that the gardaí might use it for a headquarters.
‘There were all sorts of suggestions going around, all of which the locals were delighted to hear that something would be done.
‘But unfortunately nothing’s been done.’
Architect Rob Cross, who comprehensively tracks dereliction in Ireland on his website, derelictsites.com, visited the site recently
The current owners had been granted planning permission to develop the premises as offices, but that expired in 2023
It provided inspiration for Carfax Abbey in Dracula, written by Dubliner Bram Stoker in 1897
Aldborough House provided inspiration for Carfax Abbey in Dracula, written by Dubliner Bram Stoker in 1897Christopher Lee and Valerie Leon in the 1972 Dracula AD
Dublin Central TD Marie Sherlock said the mansion ‘should be the jewel in the crown in the north side’.
The Labour TD told the MoS: ‘It is one of the most splendid Georgian mansions in the city, and yet it is this big, hulking, derelict presence on Portland Row.
‘We can’t demolish it because it’s a protected structure – nor should anybody want to – so we should be doing something with it.’
‘We can’t let it crumble because of its history and what it could become.’
Architect Rob Cross, who comprehensively tracks dereliction in Ireland on his website, derelictsites.com, visited the site recently.
He told the MoS: ‘This is what happens when the State gives away to the private sector.
‘The State should jump in and CPO it and you could have some culture there, because it is a fine building’.
