The Gazette 1977

THE INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETY OF IRELAND

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1977

VOL . 71

NO. 6

Bluecoat School Vere White

New life for the by Terence i

THE Corporation of Dublin has at this moment an opportunity to enhance the beauty of the city for all time by leaving Christ Chruch Cathedral open to view. The gain cannot be calculated in money terms; and it can cite itself for a precedent. Maurice Craig, in his classic book on Dublin, tells there how in the time of the Viceroyalty of James, Duke of Ormonde, the Dublin City Assembly was active, enclosing the ancient Green of Oxmantown in the northern suburbs. "Under the stimulus of these schemes, and of the relatively settled times", Mr. Craig writes, "Dublin has begun to grow again, and it was not long before growth brought its attendant problems. Since Mr. Craig wrote his book, the Hospital and Free School of King Charles the Second (King's Hospital) has been removed to Palmerstown and the former school building awquired by the Incorporated Law Society. It was about time. The Benchers of the King's Inns acquired the site of their presen; palatial building in Henrietta Street and the first stone was laid by Lord Clare on August 1st, 1975. It was the last of James Gandon's great architectural undertakings, in which he was assisted by his pupil, Aaron Baker. The solicitors' profession, then more commonly denominated "attorneys" did not aspire to any administrative centre of such magnificence. Their most

recent home was in the Four Courts which, for all its convenience to the fashion was from its physical character unable to be more than strictly functional. The new building is to be made available for public functions and the old chapel will be particularly suitable for entertaining in. When King's Hospital became available, it was an imaginative step to buy it, and the sum spent in restoring the building to its former splendour amounts to £1 million. A large investment; á great debt; but the motives behind it can not be impugned. First of all, it gives the profession something to be proud of, to live up to. Secondly, it is one of the major acts of conservation of the decade. The first stone of the Blue Coat School (as King's Hospital was formerly called) was laid in Blackhall Place in June 1773 by the Viceroy Harcourt. The architect was Thomas Ivory, a citizen of Cork. Master of the Dublin Society's (R.D.S.) Architectural School from 1759 until 1786, and he was responsible for training the majority of those who built in Ireland at that period. It was a time when to build with a sense of design seemed innate. (By courtesy of The Irish Times - 20 Sept. 1977).