Mayor reveals hopes for Farmleigh-style transformation to arson-hit building in Limerick

MAYOR John Moran wants the council to buy a landmark city centre building hit by an arson attack and have it used for civic purposes.

The first citizen said he is making the argument to Government “all the time” to buy the Sailor’s Home in O’Curry Street.

And he compared it with how Farmleigh House at Dublin’s Phoenix Park was bought and turned into the State’s guest house with other amenities.

READ MORE: 'Unfair’ - Council to spend €200k on historic building in Limerick town it doesn’t own

“There is no point just building homes in a city centre unless you’re providing the amenities. Then you’d try and put them together with the historic buildings we have. It’s like what we are doing at the old Mary Street garda station with the fashion incubator. How do you re-purpose all these old buildings?” he asked.

Put to him that the Sailor’s Home could be used as a place to welcome and have dignitaries visiting Limerick stay at, Mayor Moran said: “That’s the kind of thinking we need”.

“If you think about what Dublin does with all these buildings, you have the Mansion House, they’ve used the old City Hall, they’ve used the building out in Farmleigh. I think Limerick should be doing the same,” he told Limerick Live.

It was back in July 2023 that the Sailor’s Home - which was built between 1856 and 1857 - was extensively damaged by fire.

Assessments, however, confirmed that despite the damage, the property is repairable.

Photographed below, the Sailor's Home today (Picture: Adrian Butler)

Its current owners, the Shannon Foynes Port Company have hired contractors to do just this, and these efforts are reaching a conclusion.

Mayor Moran added: “We don’t own the building. We need to have conversations with the Port. But I think what Pat (Keating, the chief executive of the Port Company) and the board are saying is that they’ve done their job of not letting that building fall into decay after the fire. They are restoring it. Now we need to figure out what to do with its future. But I do think a civic building is the right use for this.”

The directly elected mayor highlighted the fact that close to 300 homes have been approved at the neighbouring gasworks site.
“Imagine it as a home for art in the city centre. There is an amazing garden out the back which has never really being used.

You can imagine a big glass cube at the back. It’s the renovation you see all over Europe,” said Mayor Moran.

Separately, at this month’s metropolitan district meeting, Social Democrats councillor Elisa O’Donovan secured support in her call to write to the current owners of the Sailor’s Home to explore the possibility of it being used as artists’ spaces.

A letter will now issue after a motion authored by her was passed.