A building you could easily pass by without noticing properly, the New Ireland Assurance building on Dawson Street is quite an impressive piece of work when you step back to take a look at it, and loaded with Gaelic symbolism. The work of the O’Brien, Morris and McCullough firm, the building dates from 1964. The provincial coats of arms, Gaelic design and its exclusively Irish language unveiling marker all make this very much a building of its time, which was both strikingly modern and tied to something very old indeed.
10-12 Dawson Street.
The New Ireland Assurance Company, born in January 1918, was bound to the nationalist movement of the day strongly. At the unveiling of their new headquarters in 1964, the company chairman Dennis McCullough (himself a veteran of the revolutionary period), noted that its first meeting was attended by men that included Michael J. Staines, Éamon de Valera, Liam Tobin and Frank Thornton, all 1916 men. To him, “all its major decisions in the years since its foundation have been influenced by the spirit of 1916, which inspired its founders.”
10-12 Dawson Street.
The building has been described by Christine Casey as “modernism tempered by a classical sensibility”, and defended by Archiseek as one of the better such office buildings of the 1960s. They note that:
With its strong modern lines, gold coloured window frames, and celtic-inspired decoration, New Ireland Assurance was attempting to demonstrate a new Ireland, looking forward, the results of Taoiseach Seán Lemass’s push for modernity in the country.
Only a year before he officially opened this building, Taoiseach Seán Lemass had appeared on the front of Time, in a feature that captured Lemass’s belief in a very Gaelic kind of capitalism, far removed from earlier economic protectionism. The magazine proclaimed there was now “a new spirit in the Ould Sod”, and championed Lemass for his move towards encouraging foreign direct investment and opening up Ireland’s economy. Readers were told that Lemass was something new indeed:
The nation’s new mood is that of Sean Lemass, who four years ago succeeded Eamon de Valera as Taoiseach. Though Lemass has been De Valera’s protégé and heir apparent for three decades, the two men could not be more dissimilar. “Dev,” the aloof, magnetic revolutionary with a martyr’s face and mystic’s mind, was the sort of leader whom the Irish have adored in every age. Sean Lemass, a reticent, pragmatic planner called “The Quiet Man,” is by temperament and ancestry more Gallic than Gaelic, and represents a wholly new species of leadership for Ireland.
10-12 Dawson Street.
This building captures a particular moment in time, when the state was still clinging to the idea of a Gaelic Ireland in many ways, but when the economy of the state was shifting and evolving. With much construction work and change around it, it is easy to pass by this reminder of Lemass era Ireland.
Click on the book for more.
Click on the book for more.
Donal
Ciarán
Sam
Come Here To Me! 
Another excellent report from Donal. I was very much taken by Time’s description of DeValera : “the aloof, magnetic revolutionary with a martyr’s face and mystic’s mind, was the sort of leader whom the Irish have adored in every age.” I would suggest that “adoration” was wearing thin with the younger generation and business-minded people by the 1960’s, it’s a pity Time overlooked the misery of the 1950’s and let Daithi Lacha off the hook.
“The provincial coats of arms”: The door for some unusual reason has only two provincial coat of arms, Munster and Ulster, with the other two being city coat of arms, Galway and Dublin. A curiosity to be investigated I guess!