Traditional homes to be favoured over student halls in Limerick community

THE owner of a site in Limerick’s Georgian Quarter earmarked for student housing says he will instead seek to build traditional homes there.

Michael Murrihy Construction owns the land in St Gerard Street, just off O’Connell Avenue, the firm acquiring it in 2024.

Planning permission is in place for a three-floor student housing development – but, having been granted in September 2021, it is due to expire next month unless its duration is extended.

There were six objections to these proposals, before they were granted.

Now, Kevin Murrihy, director of the construction firm, has said rather than build student halls, he’s now more keen to build houses more in keeping with its surrounds.

"Preferably, I’d like to put in three brick houses, and have it in keeping with the look of the houses beside it,” Mr Murrihy told Limerick Live.

"If I look at the surrounding areas, it’s beautiful old Georgian structures. I am all for modernising things, but you need to look at the area you are in. That area is an old Georgian part of the city, and this structure would look completely out of place,” he added. "I know if I was living in that area, I wouldn’t be for student halls going in there myself,” Mr Murrihy said.

A number of people have raised concern over the loss of the last remains of the Turkish baths, which were situated on O’Connell Avenue-St Gerard Street. Most of the original complex has long since disappeared, with the walls being the only remnants remaining on the St Gerard Street side.

Mr Murrihy confirmed one of the walls from the old Turkish baths had been taken out.

"It was structurally unsafe,” he pointed out. “There was nothing holding it at either side.

"But the remaining wall of the back of the Turkish baths is still standing,” he added.

Mr Murrihy said he was told by the council last year that the land had been placed on the Derelict Sites Register. The local authority had described the site “neglected”.

Following this, he said, he set about carrying out a clean-up of the area and discovered that it had become a hotspot for anti-social behaviour.

Now, the land is no longer on the Derelict Sites Register, and appears ripe for redevelopment.

Historian Tony Browne has bemoaned the loss of the remaining fragments of the Turkish baths, which operated from 1859.

"A lot of people don’t realise there were Turkish baths here. It’s sad to see - another piece of local history gone,” he said.