SAVE MOORE STREET FROM DEMOLITION

Save Moore Street from demolition - It was in Moore Street the GPO garrison took their last stand in 1916; it was also where the the  bitter decision to surrender was taken.Those present included most of the signatories of the Proclamation and members of the Irish Volunteers, Irish Citizen Army and Cumann na mBan. They evacuated the blazing GPO through Henry Place,crossing Moore Lane into Moore St. and tunneling through the houses, occupied the whole terrace. Earlier, the O'Rahilly and others went down in a hail of bullets in a bid to open an escape route in a charge up Moore St. at a British machine gun post in Parnell Street. The GPO garrison, over 300 volunteers including four later shot by British firing squad, a future Taoiseach and a father of a future Taoiseach, along with Nurse Elizabeth O'Farrell, spent their last hours of freedom in these streets, lane-ways and buildings.

 Chartered Land, property speculator, plans to build a shopping mall from O'Connell St, demolishing most of this iconic street, dwarfing the four National Monument houses and totally changing the character of this historic street market. Chartered Land, who are in NAMA, owns most of Moore St. and over the years let it run down and deteriorate. People may be fooled that this development company are doing the State a service, pumping millions into a deteriorating Moore Street...However it is Irish taxpayers' money, compliments of NAMA, that is being given to Chartered Land - a company that already owes the Irish People over E2.6 billion. Property speculators have been held responsible for the financial mess our nation is in and yet those same people are being propped up by the Government using OUR money.

Their plan is not about building a museum. It is about facilitating Chartered Lands to destroy what the National Museum described as "the most significant site in modern Irish history." Moore Street and its surrounding lane-ways from the GPO are a unique battlefield site recognised abroad. If restored sensitively it could be the jewel of the city ... Dublin's Historic Quarter. Tourists come for History-- not supermarkets. 

Whatever deals have been done in the past between public representatives and property speculators, it is time to time to end them now; neither our past nor our future is for sale. The whole battlefield site must be acquired by the State and, with The National Museum, the surrounding lanes and terrace developed as a Historic Quarter - nothing less will do.