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AT AROUND 25,000 square metres, the GPO complex on O’Connell Street in Dublin is two-thirds bigger than the pitch in Croke Park.
For many of us who call Dublin home and for those who visit the capital, we think of the post office at the front of the building and the wonderful exterior facing onto O’Connell street. But physically, the GPO is so much more than that. With two internal courtyards, offices which go up five storeys high and a relative newly interpretative centre there is a whole world of possibility for a re-imagined GPO.
Sadly, from what we heard last week, the Government appears devoid of any imagination. With an office vacancy rate of 18.6% in Dublin’s city centre at the end of last year, according to Knight Frank, it’s clear Dublin does not need any more shiny new offices.
Indeed, one of the reasons An Post cited for relocating its 900 staff to the docklands was because the GPO office space had not been renovated since the 1980s, and there are significant mechanical and engineering challenges in modernising the offices. So if the bill is too high for An Post, then who else is going to put in the necessary multi-million euros? And for whom?
Retail, a major historic project and a cultural hub were the other crumbs of detail that the public got from the Government in the past week. There is no indignity to retail, the sector generates local jobs and is the lifeblood in terms of employment for communities close to O’Connell Street, but do we really want major big brands taking up residence in one of Ireland’s important and historic buildings?
For us in the Labour Party, the GPO can be much more than a shrine to the past. Instead, the sacrifice of so many in 1916 is best remembered by ensuring the GPO is a living, breathing institution.
That starts with keeping the post office at the front of the complex. At a time when so many post offices have been relegated to the back of the local shop and crucially when postmasters are telling us their business is increasingly unviable, it is vital that we retain post office services in the GPO, which have been there since 1818.
Secondly and really crucially, we believe there is enormous potential for the GPO complex to become a thriving artistic and residential hub in the heart of the city, combining important remembrance of the GPO’s past, with desperately needed artist space and accommodation for Dublin’s future.
For almost two decades now, we have seen the hollowing out and dramatic loss of many of Dublin’s artistic and cultural spaces. This has been a devastating process where culture has not been able to compete with capitalism.
In that context, the GPO as a public building offers an incredible opportunity to become a place to create and to showcase the best of our country’s creativity across a range of art forms. Natural light fills the courtyards, and as any visual artist, writer, theatre group or musician will tell you, their need for space is basic but crucial for them to create. Furthermore, the new chapter in the GPO’s life could be really groundbreaking by converting a number of offices into apartments.
One thing for certain: we know the demand for artist spaces is huge. In December 2021, Dublin City Council commissioned a Dublin City Cultural Infrastructure Audit. At that time, there were over 2,500 artists and 25,000 creative workers recorded in Dublin, but no more than 392 individual and 137 shared artistic workspaces. Four years on, progress is painfully slow across the city.
The Dublin task force already recognises the need for O’Connell Street to become a residential area, and while the task force set out ambitious plans, that hasn’t been matched with the funding. This goes to the heart of the issue with the GPO. Do we really believe a FF-FG Government is going to stump up the money any time soon for elaborate and expensive reconfigurations of the GPO? The same Government that pulled the plug this month on 250 desperately needed social homes due to cost implications.
As a TD in Dublin Central, I know there is already a very long list of necessary projects to be funded in the Dublin 1 area, and the implementation report published last week inspires no confidence that Government departments will bring flair and finance to the GPO project anytime soon.
The vast majority of those offices at the back of the GPO have been vacant for two years now — it’s a scandal to allow them to lie vacant for any longer. As a starting point, let’s have them put to use as an artist space and over the next five years, let’s develop the GPO to do justice to the sacrifice of the past and be a beacon for the potential of our future.
Marie Sherlock is a Labour TD for Dublin Central.
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