Early history After significant population growth, largely associated with its development as a residential suburb of Dublin, the township of Rathmines appointed
town commissioners in 1847. The town commissioners established their first town hall at 71 Rathmines Road but, after it expanded to become the township of
Rathmines and Rathgar in 1862 and after other townships in Dublin erected their own town halls, the Rathmines town commissioners decided to erect a more substantial building on the same site. The new building was designed by
Sir Thomas Drew in the
Baroque style, built by John Good in red
sandstone and brick and was officially opened in 1896. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage of four bays facing onto Rathmines Road Lower. The right-hand bay featured a round headed opening with an ornate
archivolt and a
keystone carved with a human face. There was a semi-circular
oriel window on the first floor, surmounted by a segmental
pediment. Above and behind, there was a three-stage tower with
lancet windows in the first stage, clock faces in the second stage and
arcades in the third stage, all surmounted by an
ogee-shaped dome and a
weather vane. The left hand section of three bays was fenestrated by
cross-windows on both floors. There were panels with carvings of
swags above the first floor windows, which were flanked by
Ionic order pilasters supporting an
entablature and a
modillioned
cornice. Above the left-hand section there was a large triangular pediment, with a tripartite
mullioned and
transomed window, surmounted by a date stone, in the
tympanum. The clock in the tower was made by Chancellor and Son of
Bachelors Walk, but it was unreliable and the time shown on the different faces were inconsistent, so the clock became known as the "four-faced liar". Internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber and a large concert hall, with a gallery and a stage, capable of accommodating 2,000 people seated. The interior decoration was undertaken by Carlo Cambi of
Siena.
Public events venue The town hall became an important venue for public events: a performance of the
oratorio,
The Messiah, by
George Frideric Handel, took place there in 1897. In 1899, the town commissioners were replaced by an
urban district council, with the town hall becoming the offices of the new council. The new urban district council met for the first time in the town hall in January 1899. The building was secured by troops of the
British Army under the command of Major
Sir Francis Fletcher-Vane during the
Easter Rising, but Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington's husband,
Francis, was unlawfully executed during the fighting. At a special
Ard Fheis of
Sinn Féin held in the town hall in March 1926,
Éamon de Valera resigned from the party after the defeat of his proposal that elected members be allowed to take their seats in the
Dáil Éireann once the controversial
Oath of Allegiance was removed. He went on to establish his own party,
Fianna Fáil, two months later. In the late 1920s,
comic operas by
Gilbert and Sullivan were an annual event there with
Trial by Jury in 1927,
H.M.S. Pinafore in 1928 and both
Cox and Box and
The Pirates of Penzance in 1930. The building ceased to be the local seat of government in 1930 when Rathmines was annexed by Dublin in accordance with the Local Government (Dublin) Act 1930. and a convention of the
National Corporate Party was held there in July 1936. In May 1945, the future
President of Ireland,
Erskine Hamilton Childers, attended the town hall to deliver a speech to the
Irish Red Cross Society arguing that the destiny of Ireland was "inextricably linked with that of Europe". During the
1973 general election,
Liam Cosgrave gave a speech in the town hall announcing proposals for extra expenditure on social reforms: his party won the election, and he became
Taoiseach. The building became the home of
Rathmines College of Further Education in 1980. An extensive programme of alterations, involving the installation of false ceilings into the concert hall to create classrooms, was carried out at that time. In 2018, several councillors on the South East Area Subcommittee of
Dublin City Council advocated bringing the concert hall back into use when the lease to the college expires in 2032. ==References==