The Irish Centre

About a year ago, I decided to check out this popular spot, and simultaneously arranged to meet up with Rachel from Instagram, who lived local to this place, but comes from my hometown of Shrewsbury, has a bunch of mutual friends, and has dabbled in the whole rooftopping thing. I'm always down for meeting folks off Instagram for adventures, providing they're not cunts. It's how I've met some of my favourite people. 

But then roughly ten minutes before we were due to meet, Rachel sent me a message saying that she actually had no idea what I looked like, so I did the reassuring thing and sent her a drawing of myself. 

So she's about to meet a stranger off the internet to have a mooch around a derelict building, and she doesn't even know what I look like. This entire narrative sounds like the start of one of those true crime videos, but luckily for Rachel, I don't kidnap people. It's too difficult. They just try to escape. As soon as I nip in the shower, I hear the downstairs window slide open and soon I'm chasing them down the street wearing only a towel. I just want friends, dammit!

Anyway, now that I've set the tone, isn't this building gorgeous? It's a two-hundred year old building surrounded by modernity, but images from 1829 show that it has gone virtually unchanged as the city evolved around it.

(Picture not mine, obviously)

The building houses a bar and a gorgeous ballroom, where the wealthiest local families attended some of the most exclusive parties and musical events. 

It's somewhat fitting then that the semi-circular door is a nod to the Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, which was erected to celebrate a singing competition in 335BC. Lysicrates was a wealthy patron of musical performances in the ancient theatre of Dionysus. back in Ancient Greece. 

Allegedly the colonnade here was originally open, giving the bulding a semi-circular porch rather than a semi-circular entry room, but it was decided in the early 1820s that this provided inadequate shelter and was rather pointless, and so it was filled in and made into the circular entrance that it is today.

 

I've also managed to find an old floor plan that shows the original layout of all the rooms.

So as you can see, the entrance leads to a circular room, and then there are a series of central circular rooms surrounded by two separate means of access to the ballroom via the drawing room and refreshment room. This is no longer 100% accurate to the current layout, because the middle section has since been turned into another large bar area, courtesy of alterations made in the 1890s. It's also possible to see that the venue originally had gender segregated entry, with the women entering via the door on the left, into their own private cloakroom.

 

Inside the main entrance are two desks, and a pretty sweet ceiling. 

 

 

 

Posters still hang on the walls, indicative of the venues final incarnation as an Irish Centre. 

Such a use would no doubt shock the elitist rich folk who had the place built some two centuries ago, but in 1965 the building was vacant, and the Irish community needed a place to hold events.

 

Admittedly I'm not too knowledgeable on Irish history or culture. I know their history has been a bit messy. I know their accents are hot, and their names are occasionally mind-boggling. The Irish have given the world people named "Aoife," "Caoimhe" and "Saoirse," who are forever condemned to have the same damn conversation about pronounciation at every job interview or school register in England.  

 

 

The posters here are for various Irish events, this one in particular dated 2011, which is quite the curiosity. The Irish Centre closed in 1997, and there was pretty hefty media coverage at the time as people attempted to save it. Protesters hung banners from the roof and everything. So I'm absolutely clueless about why there are posters advertising events in 2011. My only guess is that maybe the building, once derelict, was accessible on open days. There have been various campaigns to raise money to save it, after all.

But that's just guesswork.

 

 

These seem a bit more retro. The yellow poster is dated 1994.

 

 

Giving it a bit more of an "open day" vibe were these photocopied newsletters that were laminated and hung on the wall, as if to show visitors some of the past events. The fact that the header indicates it's a newsletter from the Irish Centres silver jubilee dates this publication as 1990, and it seems to be looking back at some of the highlights of the past twenty-five years. It mentions the Artane Boys Band playing here in 1966 and 1967, as well as an art exhibition in 1966 to celebrate fifty years since the 1916 Easter Rising rebellion against British rule.

 

 

The Irish Centre was opened by Frank Aiken, the Irish Republics minister of external affairs. This guy grew up in the early 20th Century, and was something of a revolutionary in his younger years. The majority of Irish conflicts seem to stem from the topic of Irelands independence, and Frank Aiken  personally told Queen Victoria that she would never be welcome in Ireland until Ireland was free, which is kinda cool. I admire the mans bluntness and the fact that he wasn't afraid to speak to a monarch as if they were just a flawed, smelly, insecure ape-descended mammal like the rest of us.

He described this building as a real gem of architecture. 

 

The opening day was attended by a couple of representatives from the Irish government, as well as the archbishop of Liverpool, and the mayor, Alderman Louis Caplan. Under the leadership of the chairman, Tommy Walsh, this building went on to be a massive success with the local community, hosting numerous Irish music events, drama performances, and traditionl Irish singing, dancing and story telling, as well as the occasional wedding reception and wake.

 

Painted on the wall are the remains of some fancy lettering, giving directions to the various parts of the Irish Centre. From my knowledge of the layout, it's possible to figure out what the signs once said. The top one seems to be directing towards the Kennedy Bar, which is self explanatory, as we'll see. The second one, by process of elimination, would be the Ballroom. From the bottom up we have toilets and travel shop. In the middle is the Claddagh Room, which I was able to determine from older photos that show a room called the Claddagh Room.

 

(Picture not mine, obviously)

A Claddagh is an Irish ring that symbolises friendship, love and loyalty. The word originates from a place in Galway, deriving from the Irish word for shore, "Cladach." According to Irish legend, a fisherman from Galway named Richard Joyce was captured by pirates and sold into slavery. While imprisoned, he forged a ring in honour of a woman who he loved and vowed to return to someday. Upon escaping captivity he returned home and promptly married her. The Claddagh Ring is named after this, so I guess the Claddagh Room is for hanging out with your favourite people. 

Firstly, we'll chek out the All-Ireland bar, or the Kennedy Bar as it's commonly called.

 

The bar pays decorative tribute to John F Kennedy, the former American president and focal point of many a conspiracy theory. Honestly, as far as conspiracy theories go, the one about Kennedy probably has some weight. It's commonly believed that he was silenced because he knew too much and wasn't going to sit quietly about it. Outside of the realms of conspiracy, his leadership in America is commonly believed to have narrowly saved the world from full-on nuclear war.

 

Kennedy was of Irish descent, with his family going over to America in 1848. He was born in 1917 and he was president from 1961 until his assassination in 1963, and from what I gather he was actually very proud of his Irish roots, so it actually makes sense that the bars decor would pay tribute to him. His death was still reasonably recent news when the Irish Centre opened.

Vintage photos do exist, showing the Kennedy bar in use.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

I have no idea who these people are, but the partially lowered bar shutters indicate they might actually work here and are unwinding after the bar has closed. It is sad though, to see a place like this once being the home of happy memories, now reduced to a derelict wreck.

 

The murals above the bar are incredible. They're actually painted onto the walls! The time and effort that went into this place is astronomical. It's a shame that it's all going to waste. 

 

Over there is a mural with Kennedys head on it, which probably would have been on the adjacent wall, over here. 

 

 

Interestingly there are older photos of this area which still refer to it as the All-Ireland Bar, and are quite clearly the same room, but lack the murals or anything Kennedy related.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

So at some point during the Irish Centres time here, the All-Ireland Bar became the Kennedy Bar. Unfortunatly I don't know when this redesign took place. To be honest, I like the current Kennedy look, but it does raise a question about why it came about. I mean, in 1965 when his death was still raw, I can totally imagine someone saying "Hey, let's open an Irish bar and decorate it in tribute to Kennedy since he's very recently died." But that's evidently not what happened. In this case, someone opened a bar, and then an undetermined time later said "We should redesign the bar to pay tribute to Kennedy" as an afterthought. 

 

 

 

Let's check out the murals!

 

 

This one has a man holding what I *think* are Uilleann pipes, which are sort of like Irish bagpipes. There's also a girl holding a flute and there's an Irish drum propped up next to the guy. The emphasis here is on traditional Irish musical instruments. But check out the detail! This art is absolutely amazing. Someone actually got a ladder, climbed up here and painted this on the wall, all in an effort to make the Irish bar great.

 

 

This mural pays tribute to various historic Irish writers. James Joyce, Sean O'Casey, Patrick Kavanagh, and Flann O'brien are the obvious ones, although the two at the top left are too defaced for me to identify. All of these writers lived during the early 20th Century, and died between the 1940s and 1960s, with the most recent death being Patrick Kavanagh in 1967. This gives us some indication that the All-Ireland Bar was open for a few years before the tribute murals were added and it underwent its transformation into the Kennedy bar.

 

 

This mural depicts a shortened version of the 1912 Irish poem, Mise Eire, which personified Ireland as an old woman whose glory is past and who had been betrayed by her children, referring to those who are cool with British rule. The poet himself, Patrick Pearse, was an activist and one of the leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916. 

 

So, Eire is Irelands actual name, and it derives from Eriu, their goddess, who I presume is the woman depicted above the poem.

 

There's a lot of pride on display here, and why not? I'm not entirely clued up on Irish history, but they've had more than their fair share of conflict, much of which seems to be centred around whether or not they should be independent of British rule. Although I understand that this is an incredibly simplified summary of their issues, and that it's a lot more nuanced than that, with a civil rights movement and a load of riots and violence in the latter half of the 20th Century, and much of it is still a sore point for some to this day.

But the point is, while I'm not knowledgeable on the Irish, I do know a little bit about how the Welsh regard their proximity to England impacting their culture, and I assume the feelings are a bit similar. When it comes down to it, the purpose of the Irish Centre, and the Kennedy Bar, and all of the events held here, seems to be to preserve their identity. Of course there's going to be a display of pride here.

 

 

Here are the same man and girl once again, making me wonder if these are actually based on real people. 

 

 

Here we have another collection of historic Irish writers, Samuel Beckett, Oliver Goldsmith, William Butler Yeats, Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, and John Millington Synge. Of all of them, Samuel Beckett had the most recent death, in 1989. So presumably the bars incarnation as the Kennedy Bar, with all these murals, is a comparatively recent addition to the Irish Centre. 

Curiously, the same girl with the flute appears in the middle of these murals, so she was clearly significant, although I have no idea who she could be. Artists daughter, perhaps?

 

 

Stained glass windows in the ceiling read "O'Cinneide Bear." 

The word "Cinneide" is the Gaelic/Irish word that the name Kennedy derives from, and the word "Bear" means "Bar."

Interestingly a literal translation of the name means "Grandson of the helmeted chief."

 

 

High up in the room are the remains of scupltures of cherubim, angels that resemble small winged children. This depiction of the Cherubim isn't really that old, and only really came about in the small boys of renaissance Art from 1350 to 1620, often blending the angels with depictions of Eros/Cupid, of Greek and Roman mythology. 

The angels here predate the buildings use as an Irish Centre. In fact I pretty much skimmed over a good century and a bit to focus on the Irish first, purely because the decor makes that part of the buildings history difficult to ignore. But that's not to say that what came before them isn't interesting.

 

 

The story really begins in 1814 in a pub called The Kings Arms, when a load of rich men got together and decided to form a club for their entertainment and fancy balls.

Among them was William Statham, a town clerk who was on a joint committee of council and merchants appointed to come up with ways to restore public confidence in the council. He was the son of Richard Statham who was heavily involved in the Street Improvement Act, widening the roads and such in 1786.

 

Also in attendance, and perhaps the most prominent name was Robert Gladstone, the brother of John Gladstone, one of the cities most influential traders and slave owners. The Gladstone brothers are also related to the former Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, so it's safe to say this family had connections. In the 1830s John Gladstone had a number of sugar and coffee plantations, and about 2,183 slaves, two of which led a rebelion in 1823. When that ended badly, John was compensated for his loss of property (the executed slaves). Similarly Robert also had slaves, and a couple of plantations in Jamaica.

 

Also among the group was Edgar Corrie, who similarly has evidence suggesting he was in the slave trade. He and John Gladstone had been business partners in the 1780s. 

William Earle was also there. He was the cities mayor in 1823 to 1824, and his father was also a slave trader. Similarly, another attendee, Charles Lawrence, was mayor in 1823 and 1824, and he too owned a plantation in Jamaica.

So basically, rewinding back past all the cool Irish music, dancing and drinking, this place was built to be partied in by rich, arrogant slave owners. That does put a slightly different spin on the place.

 

 

It seems utterly bonkers to think of it today, but in 1700 this particular city was just a large fishing village with roughly 5000 inhabitants. But by 1773, it had exploded into a city of about 34,000 people, largely due to its involvement in the slave trade. Black people were purchased, traded, or sometimes outright captured from their homeland. If they died on the way to the UK, they were just thrown off the boat. Honestly, it blows my mind. Obviously we know about slavery, but it's so distant from us historically that we don't really grasp the reality of it. But while I was researching this place I went down the rabbit hole and found actual retro newspaper clippings advertising black people for sale. 

 

See, it's one thing to knw this happened, but its another thing to have the reality driven home by shit like this. So to create an understanding of the city at the time, it was dominated by a strong, hereditary caste of merchants and ship owners. Their experience and attitudes were respected and unquestioned. 

But times were changing, and it was becoming less and less legal to own a human being, although from what I gather during the 1800s there was constant exploitation of loopholes and new laws constantly trying to close these loopholes, so it wasn't a swift transition. But rather appallingly, when the slaves were freed, it was the former owners who were compensated for their loss of property, not the people who had actually been property. 

 

All of the men who sought out a venue for their elitist parties, the self-proclaimed Wellington Club, were some of the richest folks in the city. Most, if not all, had been slave owners, and they all recieved compensation when their slaves were allowed to go free. The world is fucked.

 

Behind the bar is a door leading down into the cellar.

It was the architect, Edmund Aikin, who designed this building. He submitted his plans to the Wellington Club, and they approved the designs. Former Mayor, and very prominent slave owner Jonas Bond, assigned them this plot of land in 1815, and the building opened its doors for the first time in 1816. 

Edmund Aikin actually moved here from London to personally oversee the construction process, and stayed here until his death in 1820. He actually seems to be a pretty nice guy, and pretty much everyone in his family was a doctor, teacher, or writer. He was only forty when he died, but he'd helped to popularise neo-classical architecture at the time, and this place is commonly regarded as his most important surviving piece of work.

 

The cellar is wonderful and surprisingly maze-like. But mostly featureless. It's difficult to enjoy it when the good stuff is upstairs.

 

 

The stairs leading back up to the ground floor are quite nice, but they're only photogenic because of their decay, and that really is indicative of the larger problem facing the Irish Centre now. Nature has found its way in, and it's usually all downhill from here, unless sufficient work is done to restore it. 

 

Onto the Claddagh Room!

 

The very first event to take place in this building was the Ladies Charity Ball in 1816. Newspaper coverage st the time mentioned that 850 attended, but that's not to say that anyone could just rock up. Membership to this club was reserved only for families of high standing. One of the future presidents of the Wellington Club actually wrote in his autobiography that he felt sorry for the young women who came under intense scrutiny and criticism as they applied for membership. It was said that only the most respectable and fashionable of the city set foot in here. It was all very elitist, and with such a pompous attitude it's safe to say that those excluded probably wouldn't have felt comfortable here anyway.

 

The original agenda of the Wellington Club specified that they were to have no more than twelve balls per year, but it's commonly said that there was usually only about five or six. During these balls, it was said that at least three of the original twenty Wellington Club members should attend. One publication mentions that William Statham attended wearing a wig and coat that had previously belonged to John Scarisbrick, who was the mayor in 1723. Quite oddly, there was a limit of only fifty under-25s to attend an event at a time, and there were never to be any more than 24 unmarried ladies. The balls were also enforced by stewards who were given strict orders to prevent any inappropriate dancing.

It all sounds rather bleak. I've never been one for organised fun. Still, the setting for this fake fun is a pretty one.

Of the balls that happened here, details are a little scarce, but then I doubt there was much variety.

Around Christmas time there was always something called "The Dirty Frock Ball," so called because the women were expected to save their best dress for the following January Debutantes Ball. For the grand national, there was The Steeplechase Ball in 1839, where the winning horse was taken into the building and paraded around the ballroom. That must have been quite the sight to behold. Alas, even if I was alive in 1839 I would have been considered too poor to be allowed in to see it.

I already felt inferior to horses, what with their two foot penises, but this is just salt in the wound.

 

One ball in 1844 was also attended by Sir Henry Pottinger, a famous colonial governor who probably wouldn't be quite as celebrated by todays standards, but in the old empire days, his attendance here was considered a big deal.

 

 

It is incredibly annoyng to photograph stained glass windows in the dark, and retain surrounding detail. 

 

 

According to the original floor plan, this would have been the drawing room, which would have basically been where the guests could mingle at the start of the event. The odd name comes as an opposite to Withdrawing Room, which in the 16th Century would have been a place people would have gone for more private conversations.

So in this context, the drawing room would have been where, at the start of an event, the Wellington Club and their guests would come to chat, drink, play cards, and grumble about how they couldn't own black people anymore because of all this woke nonsense. So it was basically Facebook.

 

The stained glass window in the ceiling has some Irish text that translates to "The whole bar of Ireland."

By the 1880s, the president of the Wellington Club was a chap called Sir William Forwood. He noticed a decline in attendance, and wrote quite often of his observed changes in the way people socialised. He has a book, Recollections of a Busy Life, which actually makes for an interesting read. A quick skim of the chapters shows such intriguing titles, such as Chapter IV- Arrested in New York, and Chapter VI- Attempt to blow up town hall. Spoiler alert- someone had thrown a prosthetic leg through the window and he ran away, mistaking it for a bomb. It's the 1890s and he's just invented clickbait.

 

He actually decided to hold supper events for younger men, to lure them into the club. He wrote in his book that this was sometimes successful, but social decadance was already setting in. 

In an additional attempt to make the ballroom and bar more appealing, he had the circular rooms that we saw on the floor plan altered to be the larger rectangular room that exists today, and he had the venue fitted with electrical lighting in the 1890s. This might shock you, but it was a really unpopular decision. The ladies who attended these balls had catered their appearance to the softer light of candles, and these new electrical lights made them all suddenly more aware of how perfect they didn't look. Attendance was falling away, and William needed a way to renew interest.

 

 

This was the refreshments room, according to the floor plan. In contrast to this label, it's the only room to not have a bar in it. Presumably this was where people dined, although William Forwood wrote that they mostly just had soup. There's a rather fancy balcony up there too, but at some point it was walled off.

When the Irish Centre moved here, this room became a small market where people could buy Irish food and products. There's an old photo that shows a shop stall to the left, with the balcony visible on the right.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

The shop pictured above is called "Croc an Oir" which means "Crock of Gold." Allegedly it had the largest range of Irish-made products outside of Ireland, and opened here in 1968.

 

 

At the back there's a staircase. Albeit, barely. With the floor collapsing in this part of the building, it took a bit of effort just to get to them. But these lead up to where the balcony used to be. 

 

 

Back when this was a refreshment area for the Wellington Club, this was probably an open balcony. However at some point the balcony area was walled off. But look, someone has knocked part of the wall through, meaning it's possible to get a view. 

 

And here it is. From here we can see the extent of the decay. Whole chunks of the floor have gone, and whole chunks of the ceiling are on what's left of the floor. But once, long ago, this room would have been full of people enjoying themselves, whether it's rich folks seeking refreshments at an elitist ball, or Irish folks buying Irish things. This was a place that was bursting with life under multiple different uses.

Beyond this room, the doors lead to the ball room, which is by far my favourite part.

Even when the building is as dilapidated as it is, this ballroom still looks amazing. There's clearly been some effort to prevent the ceiling from falling down, but the chandeliers are still in place, the curtain on the stage is intact, and it still looks gorgeous. Two hundred years ago, the richest folks in the city danced in this room. 

As you can probably guess, there are many vintage shots of this room that show how it used to look.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

The Wellington Club came to an end in 1922. It's commonly believed that it failed to recapture its popularity after World War One. But Sir William Forwood, having been in charge of the club in the 1890s, had already noticed that the way people socialised was changing. These fancy exclusive rich-people balls just weren't in anymore. In his book, William blamed the change on the expansion of the city. Where once there was a small city centre surrounded by suburbs, now the city had expanded into the suburbs and the attractions were scattered, instead of all of them being a stones throw away from each other. He also mentioned that a lot of the old families had long gone, and said rather ominously that the old order was passed, and that it was time for a new order to make good of the city, and preserve the traditions.

 

One has to wonder what he'd think of this now.  

The building closed, but it wasn't for very long. It saw a revival and a rebranding in 1923, which from what I've heard was a little less selective than it had been in the hundred years beforehand. Now it offered dance classes from 3:30pm until 6pm, with tea provided.

It still held some pretty fancy balls, the first five arranged before the ballroom had even re-opened, including The League Of Nations ball to celebrate peace time now that the war was over. I guess that would make Hitler the worlds most dramatic party crasher. 

 

The building was open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays from 1:30 until 11:43, with fancy attire being mandatory on Mondays. However, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays the building could be booked for weddings, childrens parties, and "parties of any description."

If nobody has ever had an orgy in this room I'll be very disappointed.

 

But ultimately this attempt to revive the ballroom and sustain it by opening it to a wider range of people fell a bit flat, and there was an unsuccessful attempt to sell the building in 1930. Following that it closed once again, before another attempt to revive it in 1932, holding dances on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 7:45 until late. But that didn't work out, and the ballroom closed again by the end of the 1930s.

 

 

Check out that ceiling!

 

 

Because of that big metal contraption supporting the ceiling, it's possible to climb up and appreciate some of the details. The upper wall of the ballroom is decorated in these tiny statues.   

 

 

If the rich elite Wellington Club would have disapproved when the doors opened to a wider range of people in the 1930s, then the 1940s sure would have made them spit out their drinks for sure.

The city got a little bit bombed during World War 2, and there are plenty of vintage photos showing children playing amongst the rubble of obliterated buildings. Someone must have said "Hey, instead of taking photos of the children in destitute conditions, why don't we give them somewhere to go? There's a big empty ballroom over here that nobody has touched in years." 

And so this venue opened up as a youth club, initially for young people aged sixteen to twenty-one, but eventually lowering the minimum age to seven. The youth club was advertised in the local papers, asking for donations of games, table tennis stuff, furniture and canteen equipment, and it seemed to be a real hit with the locals.

Newspaper clippings from the time speak of the youth clubs warden, Rhoda Dawson, claiming that the building was originally opened by the Duke of Wellington, which seems to be factually incorrect, although with the Battle of Waterloo taking place in 1815, it sure is likely that the Wellington Club named themselves after him. The manager of the youth club was the MP, Sir John Shute, a former soldier and politician. He'd served in World War One, become an MP in 1933 and was knighted in 1935 for the help and services he brought to his community. 

This youth club met three times a week. They held dances, amateur dramatics, talent contests, and games. The building did suffer bomb damage in 1941, but the children were encouraged to take part in the clean-up process while it was being renovated, making it a positive activity for them. Newspaper clippings show them polishing the ballroom floor by sliding along it with cloths on their feet.

 

 

In fact there are LOADS of vintage photos from this era of the ballroom. I was a little bit spoiled for choice, but I picked out the ones that are recognisable as the same building.

 

 This picture from 1940 shows children climbing on the buildings exterior.

 

 

This one is from February 1949 and allegedly shows children putting their toys away at the end of the day. The ballroom is recognisable in the background.

By far my favourite of the vintage images is this one from the 5th March 1949 that shows boys having a rugby scrum in the ballroom. I just love that a fancy ballroom that once held big posh dances was later used to play rugby.

This one depicts teenagers dancing in the ballroom in 1949. It's crazy to think that these people could still be alive today, albeit ancient. Their grandkids could be out there somewhere.

This picture of a boy sweeping the ballroom is allegedly from the 5th March 1949, the same day as the rugby. Presumably it was the end of the day and the children were encouraged to tidy up their mess.

This photo of teenagers smoking in the building is from 1956. I wonder if there's anyone who can look at these pictures and spot their grandparents.

 

 

There's a few stained-glass windows on the floor of the stage. But by far the best thing about the stage was that there were ladders that led directly to the roof! Wooo!!! I'm in my happy place!

 

I think Rachel took this picture. I was too busy frollicking. 

So I heard the youth club moved out in 1962, but I've also heard that the Sisters of Notre Dame used the building in 1956. That organisations purpose was to provide education to poor children, and they used the building for school dinners and exams. Seemingly confined to one room, from what I've heard many of the kids would ask permission to use the toilet, and then sneak off to explore the rest of the building. Good kids. Fuck obedience. Don't passively consume entertainment and pre-packaged adventures that require an admission fee. Be adventurers. Have an authentic experience.

So then, as covered, the Irish Centre moved in here. There were Irish meals, and Irish music. The place spent a good few decades being host to parties, concerts, stage performances, weddings and wakes. And then when the Irish Centre closed, the place has been empty and disused ever since.

There's one last part to check out, and that's this little side bit.

Allegedly this is the newest part of the building, constructed to coincide with the local cathedral opening. And it took them almost a hundred years to build that damn cathedral, so a party was definitely in order. The Irish Centre wanted to hold an event for the Arch Diocese, but soon realised that the building actually wasn't big enough.They decided to extend the building but found that their options were somewhat limited, what with there being roads on three sides of the building. Their only option was to purchase the building next door, and merge the two. But they were beaten to the purchase by a hotel that had also decided to expand, and consequently they could only purchase a backyard about twelve feet wide. Even on top of that, getting planning permission to make alterations to the building was something of a nightmare too. But they had the land now, so they figured that they might as well do something.

As such, they built this bit, as well as some dressing rooms behind the stage... and also interestingly, the stage itself was only added to the ballroom at this point too! That confused me at first, because I've seen that many old photos of this place, I was sure the stage was an original feature. I decided to hunt down some older photos to verify.

 (Photo not mine, obviously)

 

See, this blew my mind, not least because in 1965 the ballroom was a seizure-inducing shade of pink. But when I first saw it, I noticed that the stage wasn't what it currently is, and assumed the camera was just facing the opposite direction. But where are the windows??? If this was facing the ballroom from the stage, they would be along that wall. I just wasn't thinking.

But then in this vintage image of the exact same ballroom from a similar angle, you can totally see that the entire back wall was removed to make the stage bigger and fancier! Holy Hell, how did I miss that?

 

So the ballroom alterations seem to have been made in the 1970s, prior to the Cathedral opening. The cathedral opened in 1978, and had been in the works since 1907, so I guess they were anticipating its near completion and hoped to get all their work done prior to it happening, so that they were ready to party. Alas, their plans to expand the building hadn't quite been as magnificent as they had hoped, but their efforts were appreciated. Following this brief renovation, the area was opened by the Irish ambassador Donal O'Sullivan, and blessed in 1973 by Bishop Cathal Daly.

I don't know when they decided to un-pinkify the ballroom, but it sure looks better in its current blue and yellow, in my opinion.

So for some reason this part of the building has had the most graffiti. I'm not sure why wall-scrawlers seem to pick a certain part of a building to "nest" in, but I'm glad they saved their vandalism for the most boring part of the building.

 

The fact that there are crayon drawings is intriguing. What's going on here?

 

 

"A chicken born in a stable isn't a horse. Don't be so proud."

 

Okay, so it sounds like a proverb, but this line, often replacing a chicken with a dog, is a line I've seen thrown around by racist people about ethnic minorities born in the UK. And it's pretty stupid. A better analogy would be to ask whether or not a black horse born in a stable full of white horses should still be considered a horse. But that analogy not only makes more sense but is also a stupid question that you'd get laughed at for asking, so of course they aren't going to go with that. 

Whoever did this graffiti is an idiot. Here's a cute goblin thing or us to look at instead.

Finally we have the dressing rooms, and they're pretty cool.

It's basically a long coridor with a series of doors on the side.

 

 

There are stars painted on the dressing room doors.

Now onto the best part of any abandoned building, the toilets!

 

 

It's still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs. 

 

 

There's a shower too!

 

 

Presumably a mirror once hung on the wall here. Just think, a few decades ago these rooms would be full of people excitedly getting ready to go out on stage and perform in front of a massive audience.

 

 

Pinned to one of the doors is this sign. It took me a little while to figure out what this meant because of the grammatical error implies that Dan is a person with a boudoir. In actual fact "Philosophie dans le boudoir" is French for "Philosophy in the bedroom." It's a book written in 1795 by the Marquis de Sade, and it sure is something else.

"Something else" is a polite way of saying it's completely bonkers. The movie adaptation is hands down the most batshit thing I have ever sat through in the interests of blog research.

It follows the corruption of a young woman from her virtuous upbringing to one of all manner of sexual taboo. Every character is bisexual and everyone, even the girls, really like anal, all of which is justified throughout the story by a passionate, but awkwardly-phrased dialogue that ultimately concludes that if something brings you pleasure, just do it. 

It's not porn, as such, but rather the plot does feature a lot of detailed discussion about pretty much everything that it is possible to do with another human being. It doesn't hold back at all, nor do they make any attempt to make a dialogue about sex even remotely sexy, but it's somehow amazing for it. The film definitely falls into that "so bad it's good" territory, but if you're sober when you watch it, you'll absolutely want a drink after.

 

The Marquis de Sade himself was convicted of sodomy in 1772, so this really is a personal statement from him against the current laws and restrictions at the time. While I do agree to some extent with the plot message that people should just do what makes them happy, the leading male character conveying these messages does come across a bit like a cult leader, and he doesn't seem to have much regard for consent. Then of course, the young womans mother, as punishment for attempting to save her from this percieved corruption, is raped and tortured, and in the book version deliberately given syphilis. It kinda takes it a bit too far. But then it wouldn't be the Marquis de Sade if anything less than that happened.

That movie is two hours of my life I won't get back. This blog takes me down some weird and wonderful rabbit holes.

But Holy Shit, this means that the last event to be had in the ballroom was a stage production of Philosophy in the Bedroom!!! That's amazing!!! Goddammit, talk about ending on a high note.

 

And that's all I've got. The building was put on the risk register in 1999. It suffers from dampness, dry rot, and lead theft from the roof that has exposed it to the elements. Since its closure, numerous futures have been proposed, the wackiest of which involved turning it into a hotel and proposed attaching a huge metal and glass structure on top of the existing building. Some have said it should be a medical museum. Some have said it should be a technology and science hub. Some just want a dance hall.

In 2016 it was said that £121,000 was to be spent just on repairing the roof alone to make it water tight, but such efforts didn't materialise until 2018, and even then only £100,000 was spent on it. As you can see, it needs a little more. It seems to be a case of the council needing to pull their finger out.

Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later, because it's a phenomenal building, and it should be saved. Over the course of two hundred years, people of all kinds of backgrounds have danced, drank, laughed, played games, and fallen in love inside this building. There are hundreds of people who have memories of this place, and thousands more who arent around to share theirs. It's madness that it was once so important to so many people, and now it's just left to slowly collapse on itself. 

My next blogs are both mines, but both are very different, and I'm really looking forward to writig about them. In the meantime, follow me on Instagram, Vero, Reddit, and the shitter ones too, Twitter and Facebook!

Thanks for reading!