Friday 2 March 2012: Georgian Dublin?

It's not all pretty terraces, despite what the guidebooks and postcards might have you believe. There's lots of Victorian and Edwardian Gothic around the streets as well.

This beauty was Hatch Hall, a Jesuit-run student residence for males UCD students. When the college was located in the city center, students had a ten minute walk to class. But the move to a suburban campus, and lots of rental housing, meant the building was under threat and finally closed in 2004.

It was to be butchered converted into a hotel, but the Record of Protected Structures put paid to that idea. Instead, the developers rented it to the Government as a concentration camp reception center for asylum seekers. Bought for ?16m, now a steal - with planning permission for conversion to 36 apartments - at ?6m ONO! Hopefully, some of that will go towards their festering eye-sore that is Scotch Hall Phase 2 - a half-started blot on Drogheda for two years and counting...

And a special - if belated - welcome to raheny_eye, who joined "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers" yesterday, and has probably seen most of this before!

• iPhone 4:
• f/2.8:
• 1/339":
• 3.9mm:
• ISO 80

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