Outrage as O'Rahilly's House Demolished Secretly Under the Cover of Darkness
With great sadness the O'Rahilly's House, a famous historical landmark once home to the 1916 Easter Rising leader Michael Joseph O'Rahilly, was demolished in the early hours of the morning of 29th September 2020. This comes after the vote by Dublin City Council on the 14th of September to preserve the house and make it a listed building which passed unanimously.
This is a further example to the disregard of developers in this country and the power of profit over the voice of the people. With enough money the developers, McSharry and Kennedy, were able to ignore the protections on the house and destroy a piece of Irish history.
Ógra Shinn Féin calls for greater regulations and actual oversight to be placed on developers in Ireland and the building of suitable housing for communities not the €625,000 “affordable” homes that are planned to be build on the now ruined lot of the once great O'Rahilly House.
The democratic will of the people was blatantly ignored with this morning’s demolition, demonstrating that this government cares little about the history of our Island’s patriots.
As James Connolly Heron (the great grandson of James Connolly) said, tragically this is now the 20th house directly connected to the Easter Rising that has been wilfully obliterated. This is a damning indictment of Minister Darragh O’Brien’s (Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage) failure to preserve our heritage and reflects poorly and on his colleague Catherine Martin (Minister for Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht).
In no other state would such deliberate destruction be tolerated. This is the latest example showing how out of touch this government is with preserving its empire shattering, proud and noble history.
Ógra Shinn Féin and the senior party condemns this wanton vandalism and calls upon the government to have it rebuilt immediately. The plans to have this house turned into a living museum where Markievicz, Connolly, De Valera, Collins and many others met are now no more.
Ógra Shinn Féin calls for greater regulations and actual oversight to be placed on developers in Ireland and the building of suitable housing for communities not the €625,000 “affordable” homes that are planned to be build on the now ruined lot of the once great O'Rahilly House.