GOING FORWARD PHOTONIQUE WILL BE ADVERTISMENT FREE
GOING FORWARD PHOTONIQUE WILL BE ADVERTISMENT FREE
Originally Photographed 19 September 2026
MY FIRST DAY USING THE iPHONE 18 PRO AS A CAMERA
When I was young a school friend who lived above a shop or pub on Granby Row was given the nickname "Big Sausage" because Granby Sausages was the local industrial anchor.
The prominent, hoarded site occupying the corner where Dominick Place, Granby Place, and Dominick Street Lower meet is the new 16-classroom primary school campus commissioned by the Department of Education:
The Connection to Parnell Square: For decades, Coláiste Mhuire was inextricably linked with the Georgian terrace on Parnell Square North and later Parnell Square East. The new complex at Dominick Street Lower / Dominick Place was commissioned specifically to provide a modern, permanent facility for Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire, bringing the pupils across to this regenerated parcel.
Architectural Scheme & Scale: Designed by Denis Byrne Architects, the complex was conceived as a stepped structure ranging between two, four, and five storeys. Due to the high density of the surrounding streetscape, the design features rooftop terraced play areas and ball courts alongside an in-situ reinforced concrete frame and brick envelope.
Delays & Stoppages: Construction on the site has contended with severe delays, site logistics, and contractor challenges that have repeatedly pushed back its planned completion date (originally slated for mid-2025), leaving the structural frame and extensive site hoardings lingering opposite Granby’s dispatch yard and adjacent mews.
Directly bounding this school development is the modern Dominick Hall / Dominick Place regeneration corridor:
Dominick Place: Designed as part of the wider masterplan by Carr Cotter & Naessens with Denis Byrne Architects for Dublin City Council (DCC), Dominick Place itself was laid out as a new east–west link street defined by a terrace of five townhouses connecting Lower Dominick Street through to Granby Place and Granby Lane.
Dominick Street West Social Housing Delays: Facing this scheme across the Luas tracks, the regeneration of the 1960s flat blocks on Dominick Street West has been prolonged. Initially intended as an exemplar deep retrofit project using digital twins, foundational surveys revealed that the structures lacked sufficient piling to take additional floors without an external exoskeleton. DCC consequently abandoned the retrofit in favour of complete demolition and rebuild, adding years of planning, clearing, and hoarding to the area.
Granby Lane Supportive Housing: Along Granby Lane itself, high-density supportive infill schemes have been completed in stages. Most notably, the Paddy McGrath Housing Project operates Talbot House (at 9/9A Granby Lane) and 20A Dominick Place—designed by FKL Architects—providing specialist residential accommodation featuring projecting bay windows and rooftop community gardens.
Despite widespread residential and educational redevelopment, the immediate laneway junction is dominated by Granby Ltd (Granby Sausages) at 38–40 Granby Place:
An Inner-City Survivor: Founded in 1933 by the Kavanagh family, Granby is virtually the last surviving traditional meat producer operating in central Dublin. In the mid-twentieth century, the Rotunda and North City district teemed with pork curers, abattoirs, and victuallers; while others migrated to outer-suburban industrial estates, Granby modernised within its original footprint.
Streetscape Character: Operating its four-generation dispatch depot, loading bays, and traditional Friday factory shop directly within this narrow mews network, the firm’s vans and daily deliveries maintain a lively, working industrial atmosphere cheek-by-jowl with the quiet mews and stalled civic sites.
The Marquess of Granby & Mid-Georgian Layout: Granby Row was laid out between 1758 and 1773 as the western flank of Rutland Square (now Parnell Square). It was named in tribute to John Manners, Marquess of Granby (1721–1770), the British cavalry hero of the Battle of Warburg (1760), whose bare-headed charge gave rise to the phrase "going at it bald-headed".
Service Lanes (Granby Lane and Granby Place): Granby Lane and Granby Place were established as rear service laneways behind the stately townhouses of Granby Row and Dominick Street, housing stables, carriage houses, coal cellars, and coachmen’s lodgings.
Tenement Era and Modern Clearance: Following the Act of Union (1800), the migration of the aristocracy precipitated a decline across Dublin's northern Georgian core, transforming grand residences into tenements. In the late 1950s and 1960s, extensive Dublin Corporation clearances led to the demolition of deteriorating Georgian terraces to build council flat complexes and light industrial yards, establishing the urban patchwork visible today.
SEAPOINT AND NEARBY IN 2008
