Survey Data
Reg No
50010321
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Previous Name
Kapp and Peterson once M. Kelly and Son
Original Use
House
In Use As
Shop/retail outlet
Date
1915 - 1920
Coordinates
315945, 234425
Date Recorded
05/12/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Corner-sited end-of-terrace single-bay five-storey house over concealed basement, rebuilt 1917, with three-bay south side elevation fronting onto Bachelors Walk and shopfront spanning both elevations. Single-span slate roof set behind rendered parapet wall with modillioned deep cornice and brick chimneystack with clay pots to north party wall. Cast-iron hopper and down pipe breaking through parapet to west elevation. Cement rendered walls with moulded platband at fourth floor sill level and plain frieze over fourth floor. Square-headed window openings with architrave surrounds, concrete sills and single-pane timber sliding sash windows. Plain frieze and cornice to first and second floor windows with tripartite window to first floor on east elevation. Replacement glazed timber shopfront to ground floor.
Appraisal
Bachelors Walk was laid out in c.1680 as an extension of Ormond Quay, with the building of residences starting in the early 1700s by wealthy merchants. This building, along with its three neighbours, extends the taller scale of O'Connell Street Lower onto Bachelors Walk. The present appearance of the building dates from the early twentieth century when its walls were rebuilt (1917) to designs by G.P. Sheridan but it retains the fenestration pattern and much internal fabric of its eighteenth-century predecessor. It is a discreetly detailed building which successfully turns the corner from O'Connell Street Lower onto the quays on one of the city's most prominent corner sites while contributing to the overall impression of two streetscapes. This corner building was once the premises of the tobacconists, Kapp and Peterson, and a discreet panel carries their monogram ("KP"). The building was previously the premises of M. Kelly and Son and it was captured in that guise, its windows smashed, in an atmospheric photograph showing the damage to O'Connell Street following the 1916 Rising: the building, styled "Kelly's Fort", had been occupied by volunteers under the command of Captain Peadar Bracken and came under machine gun fire from Independent House and shelling from Trinity College [RTÉ 0500/040].