Irish Yeast Company building at 6 College Street GoogleMaps GoogleMaps

DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL has rejected plans to merge one of Dublin’s iconic buildings with Victorian pub Bowe’s on Fleet Street. 

The Irish Yeast Company building at 6 College Street in the city centre was sold last year for €850,000 following the death of owner John Moreland, who was born above his family’s shop and who lived in the listed building for 60 years before his death in 2018. 

The building was bought by businessman Declan Doyle who also owns Doyle’s pub, the former Ladbrokes betting store next door and Bowe’s on Fleet Street.

Under a planned redevelopment, Capital Estate Management Ltd. proposed knocking through the wall of Bowe’s pub on Fleet Street into the mid-18th century building and developing the site at College Street and Fleet Street.

Bowe's pub on Fleet Street GoogleMaps GoogleMaps

The plans involved more than doubling the size of Bowe’s pub from 142sqm to 336sqm as well as increasing the floor area of the Times Hostel premises beside 6 College Street. 

The council, however, has refused permission for the redevelopment citing an “unacceptable loss of historic fabric and legibility” under the proposed plans. 

The Irish Yeast Company is a protected structure limiting what alterations can be made to the structure. 

In its decision, the council said that the “removal of the rear return, construction of new extensions, breaches through party walls and demolition of internal wall” would have “an irreversibly detrimental and seriously injurious impact on the historic fabric, plan form, integrity and architectural character of this rare and important shop and residence.”

Aerial view of College Street and Fleet Street GoogleMaps GoogleMaps

“The proposal would seriously injure the special architectural and historic character and integrity.”

An Taisce, the National Trust, strongly objected to Capital’s proposals. In its submission to the council, it said that by joining both the Irish Yeast Company and Bowe’s the development would “diminish” these separate historic structures.