The Green Street Trust was an Irish company incorporated in 1990 with charitable status. Its aim was to promote urban renewal in disadvantaged inner city areas through the rehabilitation of historic buildings for contemporary use and where possible to secure multiple uses within individual buildings.

Conservation Activity

The Trust obtained a 99-year lease from the

Office of Public Works The Office of Public Works (OPW) ( ga, Oifig na nOibreacha Poiblí) (legally the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland) is a major Irish Government agency, which manages most of the Irish State's property portfolio, including hundreds of ow ...

(OPW) of the former

Debtors’ Prison A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe.Cory, Lucinda"A Historic ...

situated on Halston Street and Green Street in Dublin's north inner city and undertook restoration works to the building to plans prepared by McCullough Mulvin Architects. In August 1992 a group of volunteers from Voluntary Service International carried out restoration works to the building. In 1994 the Trust ran a carpentry and joinery course as a Fás Community Youth Training Project to replace the timber sash windows in the building that were in poor condition. The Trust carried out substantial works to refurbish the Debtors’ Prison in the 1990s but due to escalating building costs and a lack of funding construction work ceased and the Trust handed back the lease to the Office of Public Works.

Directors and Patrons

Most of the directors of the company had been members of

Students Against the Destruction of Dublin Students Against the Destruction of Dublin (SADD) was a student campaigning group active in Dublin, Ireland, between 1987 and 1991. It lobbied for the sensitive restoration and re-use of old buildings instead of demolition. It also proposed a mod ...

.Sunday Business Post 'Locked away for the public good' Teri Griffin, 5 November 1995 The directors included

Tony Connelly Tony Connelly (born 21 December 1964,Tony Connelly on Twitterit’s my birthday21 December 2019 in County Antrim) is an Irish journalist and author. He is Europe Editor for RTÉ News. Connelly has written for other agencies and publications, ...

, Frank Cooney,

Ciarán Cuffe Ciarán Cuffe (born 3 April 1963) is an Irish politician who is a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Ireland for the Dublin constituency since July 2019. He is a member of the Green Party, part of the European Green Party. He previousl ...

, Deryck Fay (Company Secretary), Emma Kelly, Garret Kelly, Ger Lambert, Richard Lyons, Eunan McLaughlin, Rachel McRory (chair), Colm Murray, Jerome Ó Drisceoil, Colmán Ó Siochrú, and Blaise Smith. Its patrons were Dermot Egan, The

Knight of Glin The Knight of Glin (; dormant 14 September 2011), also known as the Black Knight or Knight of the Valley, was a hereditary title held by the FitzGerald and FitzMaurice families of County Limerick, Ireland, since the early 14th century. The fam ...

, Justice

Niall McCarthy Niall McCarthy (born 1 September 1981 in Carrigtwohill, County Cork) is an Irish sportsperson. He played hurling with his local club Carrigtwohill and has been a member of the Cork senior inter-county team since 2002. Playing career Club M ...

, Dr. Edward McParland, John O’Connor, Breege O’Donaghue, Ruairí Quinn TD, Nicholas Robinson, Gerry Walker an
Dr. Pat Wallace

References

{{Reflist Business services companies established in 1990 Companies based in Dublin (city) Historic preservation