1800 – D’Olier & Westmoreland, Dublin

Where D’Olier and Westmoreland Streets meet the quays and Carlisle Bridge was designed as an important architectural setpiece by the Wide Streets Commissioners. As a high profile location, the buildings were always going to be targeted for redevelopment over time. All of these buildings illustrated are now gone. The first to go was the central building, which was given a Victorian makeover in the 1860s for London & Lancashire Fire Insurance Company. They later redeveloped the site, replacing it with a portland stone gothic design by J.J. O’Callaghan in the mid 1890s. The building to the left was known as Carlisle House, and was pulled down in the late 1950s to be replaced with O’Connell Bridge House. The building to the right was the Ballast Office, home of the Dublin Port and Docks Board.

At one stage, the developer of O’Connell Bridge House proposed a mirror image on this site, but planning permission was refused. In 1979, it was removed and replaced with a poor quality facsimile designed by Niall Scott. In 1983, the building immediately behind the O’Callaghan-designed building was demolished and rebuilt also in a poor pastiche version.