Costello welcomes state’s purchase of Moore Street National Monument

31 March 2015

by Cllr Joe Costello

The decision by the Government to purchase the National Monument at 14-17 Moore Street is most welcome.  These houses were occupied by the rebels in 1916 when they fled the burning GOP, and it is where they made their last stand before surrendering.

It is right and proper that a National Monument of such significance be held in the possession of the State.  The National Monument, previously in private ownership and part of a property and retail development, had been bogged down in controversy. It can now be properly developed by the State for the 1916 Commemoration.

It is more than twenty years since I first put forward a motion to Dublin City Council that No. 16 Moore Street, where the last Council of War with James Connolly and Padraig Pearse was held, would be made a protected structure and 1916 commemorative centre.  This led to the eventual recognition of 14-17 as a National Monument.

It is wonderful that the future of this National Monument is now guaranteed, and it can be developed together with the neighbouring National Monument, the GPO, which was the Headquarters of the Easter Rising, in a manner befitting their iconic importance in the history of our Republic.