Cantrell & Crowley Architects submit planning application for new 47 bedroom hotel in Temple Bar

By Gordon Deegan – 15th August 2023 – Article on the Irish Times

The owner of one of Ireland’s best known pubs, The Temple Bar, has lodged an application for a new hotel in the area. Tom Cleary’s Chambers Properties Ltd has applied for permission for a new 47-room boutique hotel facing on to Dame Street and Eustace Street in Dublin.

The application involves the change of use of a building known as the Shamrock Chambers. The five-storey over basement building currently houses a vacant restaurant, unused offices and a shop. He wants to transform it into a six-storey hotel.

Tom and Jackie Cleary’s Temple Inns Ltd paid more than €11 million last year for the Temple Bar Lane hotel, adjacent to the pub.

The application says the planned restaurant and bar will add to the vibrancy of Dame Street.

“The proposed change of use and additional storey are a positive proposition for Shamrock Chambers, bringing an underutilised but historic and characterful property back into a more active and sustainable state and use,” said Patricia Thornton of Thornton O’Connor.

She said the design of the hotel, including the additional storey, “respects the existing building and its environs, including the merits of the conservation area”. Using the building for a hotel would not lead to “an over-concentration of hotels/aparthotel accommodation in this part of the city as has been recently assessed by the council”, she added. The plan proposes the hotel’s main entrance will front on to Eustace Street.

She noted Dublin City Council had previously granted planning permission for a 39-bedroom hotel on the same site in February 2018 but that has since expired.

Cantrell and Crowley Architects, who have been commissioned to design the hotel, said the number of rooms required to make the business viable necessitated the additional storey to the existing building

A decision is due on the application next month.