Nassau St, junction with Kildare St, Dublin (32279462995)

The Kildare Street Club is a historical member's club in Dublin, Ireland, at the heart of the

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...

Protestant Ascendancy The ''Protestant Ascendancy'', known simply as the ''Ascendancy'', was the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland between the 17th century and the early 20th century by a minority of landowners, Protestant clergy, and members of th ...

. The Club remained in

Kildare Street Kildare Street () is a street in Dublin, Ireland. Location Kildare Street is close to the principal shopping area of Grafton Street and Dawson Street, to which it is joined by Molesworth Street. Trinity College lies at the north end of the ...

between 1782 and 1977, when it merged with the

Dublin University Club Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 cen ...

to become the Kildare Street & University Club, moving to the University Club's 1776 premises at number 17 on the North side of

St Stephen's Green St Stephen's Green () is a garden square and public park located in the city centre of Dublin, Ireland. The current landscape of the park was designed by William Sheppard. It was officially re-opened to the public on Tuesday, 27 July 1880 by L ...

. Its second Kildare Street club house, built between 1859 and 1860, has not been disposed of but is now

leased A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

to a Heraldic Museum and the

Alliance Française An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

History

Founded in the year of the

Constitution of 1782 The Constitution of 1782 was a group of Acts passed by the Parliament of Ireland and the Parliament of Great Britain in 1782–83 which increased the legislative and judicial independence of the Kingdom of Ireland by reducing the ability of ...

, the club's first home was a house in Kildare Street built by Sir Henry Cavendish on land bought from James FitzGerald, 20th Earl of Kildare, later first

Duke of Leinster Duke of Leinster (; ) is a title in the Peerage of Ireland and the premier dukedom in that peerage. The subsidiary titles of the Duke of Leinster are: Marquess of Kildare (1761), Earl of Kildare (1316), Earl of Offaly (1761), Viscount Leinster, ...

. In 1786 the club acquired an adjoining house also built by Cavendish, thus completing its original club house.''The Irish quarterly review'' (1853)
pp. 295–296
/ref> There is a tradition that what prompted the foundation of the club was the

blackballing Blackballing is a rejection in a traditional form of secret ballot, where a white ball or ballot constitutes a vote in support and a black ball signifies opposition. The system is typically used where an organization's rules provide that one or t ...

William Burton Conyngham William Burton Conyngham (1733 – 31 May 1796) was an Irish politician and improver. Life He was born William Burton, the second son of Francis Burton and Mary Conyngham, sister of Henry Conyngham, 1st Earl Conyngham. In 1781, his name was ...

Daly's Club Daly's Club, with premises known as Daly's Club House, was a gentlemen's club in Dublin, Ireland, a centre of social and political life between its origins in about 1750 and its end in 1823. History Daly's had its origins in a Chocolate House ...

Dame Street Dame Street (; ) is a large thoroughfare in Dublin, Ireland. History The street takes its name from a dam built across the River Poddle to provide water power for milling. First appears in records under this name around 1610 but in the 14th ...

. This led to an exodus of members from Daly's, who formed a new club which soon rivalled their old one as a fashionable haunt and which in the end eclipsed it. Although by the later 19th century the club was closely associated with the

and

Irish Unionism Unionism is a political tradition on the island of Ireland that favours political union with Great Britain and professes loyalty to the United Kingdom, British Monarchy of the United Kingdom, Crown and Constitution of the United Kingdom, cons ...

, nevertheless its earliest members included men strongly opposed to the British connection, such as Sir Jonah Barrington, who argued against the creation in 1801 of a

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Great B ...

. In a famous incident at the Kildare Street Club in 1806, Earl Landaff, a supporter of

Catholic Emancipation Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...

, denounced the "eighty-five scoundrels" who had blackballed his brother

Montague James Mathew Lieutenant General Montague James Mathew (18 August 1773 – 19 March 1819) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and politician, a member of the Irish House of Commons for Ballynakill until 1800 and of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom for County ...

, and stalked out of the club, never to return. By 1840, the club had some six hundred and fifty members, "a large and elegant card-room, coffee, reading, and billiard-rooms". There was a committee of fifteen members, elected annually. Admission to membership was by ballot, with an entrance fee of £26, 10 s., and an annual subscription of £5. In 1858, it was decided to build a new club house, as the original premises at 6, Kildare Street, were now too small for the club's needs. In 1859, the club was described in ''The Building News'' as "an institution famous for

aristocracy Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At t ...

claret Bordeaux wine ( oc, vin de Bordèu, french: vin de Bordeaux) is produced in the Bordeaux region of southwest France, around the city of Bordeaux, on the Garonne River. To the north of the city the Dordogne River joins the Garonne forming the ...

and

whist Whist is a classic English trick-taking card game which was widely played in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the rules are simple, there is scope for strategic play. History Whist is a descendant of the 16th-century game of ''trump'' ...

..." Between 1859 and 1860, the new club house was built, designed by

Thomas Newenham Deane Sir Thomas Newenham Deane (1828 – 8 November 1899) was an Irish architect, the son of Sir Thomas Deane and Eliza Newenham, and the father of Sir Thomas Manly Deane. His father and son were also architects. Works attributed to Thomas Newen ...

and

Benjamin Woodward Benjamin Woodward (16 November 1816 – 15 May 1861) was an Irish architect who, in partnership with Sir Thomas Newenham Deane, designed a number of buildings in Dublin, Cork and Oxford. Life Woodward was born in Tullamore, County Offaly, Ire ...

, at a cost of some £21,000. This replaced three existing houses on Kildare Street and one on Leinster Street, which were demolished, giving an L-shaped new building, with an internal plan similar to that of the

Reform Club The Reform Club is a private members' club on the south side of Pall Mall in central London, England. As with all of London's original gentlemen's clubs, it comprised an all-male membership for decades, but it was one of the first all-male cl ...

Pall Mall, London Pall Mall is a street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster, Central London. It connects St James's Street to Trafalgar Square and is a section of the regional A4 road. The street's name is derived from pall-mall, a ...

. The club committee had altered Deane and Woodward's original Italian Gothic design, insisting on large

arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vaul ...

ed windows divided by thin

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

s, and the outcome was described as

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

.Frederick O'Dwyer, ''The architecture of Deane and Woodward''
pp. 329–330
/ref> The new building is adorned by "whimsical beasts".Brendan Lehane, ''The companion guide to Ireland'' (2001)
p. 16
/ref> The club had planned to move from the old to the new building in 1861, but on 11 November 1860 there was a disastrous fire at the old club house. Three maids died, and a fourth was saved by being at the time in the bedroom of the club accountant, from which she was rescued. All of the club's pictures and furniture and a library of fifteen thousand books were destroyed, and the club moved into its new building before completion. In ''Parnell and his Island'' (1887), George Moore wrote scathingly of the club: Overwhelmingly

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

and

, in 1900 the club was called by a member "the only place in Ireland where one can enjoy decent

caviar Caviar (also known as caviare; from fa, خاویار, khâvyâr, egg-bearing) is a food consisting of salt-cured roe of the family Acipenseridae. Caviar is considered a delicacy and is eaten as a garnish or a spread. Traditionally, the te ...

". It has been estimated that at about this time only between two and six per cent of the club's members were supporters of

Irish Home Rule The Irish Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for self-government (or "home rule") for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the e ...

. The most popular Dublin club for the

Irish Parliamentary Party The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP; commonly called the Irish Party or the Home Rule Party) was formed in 1874 by Isaac Butt, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish national ...

was the

St Stephen's Green Club ST, St, or St. may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Stanza, in poetry * Suicidal Tendencies, an American heavy metal/hardcore punk band * Star Trek, a science-fiction media franchise * Summa Theologica, a compendium of Catholic philosophy an ...

, while the Kildare Street Club was closely associated with the

Irish Conservative Party The Irish Conservative Party, often called the Irish Tories, was one of the dominant Irish political parties in Ireland in the 19th century. It was affiliated with the Conservative Party in Great Britain. Throughout much of the century it and th ...

and later the

Irish Unionist Alliance The Irish Unionist Alliance (IUA), also known as the Irish Unionist Party, Irish Unionists or simply the Unionists, was a unionist political party founded in Ireland in 1891 from a merger of the Irish Conservative Party and the Irish Loyal and ...

Redevelopment and reuse

After the

partition of Ireland The partition of Ireland ( ga, críochdheighilt na hÉireann) was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. I ...

of 1921, and again after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the Kildare Street Club found itself in decline. In 1976 it merged with the

, thereafter sharing the premises of the latter at 17,

, under the name "Kildare Street and University Club". In 1967 the owner of the Kildare Street premises, Phoenix Assurance, sought permission to demolish half the building and replace it with an office block, having printed the notice in the newspapers in Irish. Dublin Corporation refused permission in June 1967. The next owners, Rampart Holdings, sought permission to redevelop the interior of the building in March 1971, and as only the exterior of the building was protected by a preservation order, this work was allowed to go ahead. The interior of the building was gutted, with the vaulted arcades, stone fireplaces, carved columns, staircase and flying buttresses as removed. The work began in 1971, and was finished by 1973, having converted the interior to accommodate 15,500 square feet of office space. The building is now leased to the Heraldic Museum and

Genealogical Office The Genealogical Office is an office of the Government of Ireland containing genealogical records. It includes the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland ( ga, Príomh Aralt na hÉireann), the authority in Ireland for heraldry. The Chief Herald ...

and the

Alliance française An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

.Sean Sheehan, Patricia Levy, ''Ireland handbook'' (2002), p. 74

Notable members

* Sir Jonah BarringtonThomas Hay Sweet Escott, ''Club Makers and Club Members'' (1913)
pp. 329–333
/ref> *

Lord Henry FitzGerald Lord Henry FitzGerald PC (Ire) (30 July 1761 – 9 July 1829) was the fourth son of the 1st Duke of Leinster and the Duchess of Leinster (née Lady Emily Lennox). A younger brother was the revolutionary Lord Edward FitzGerald. Life Fitzgerald ...

* Arthur O'Connor of the

Society of United Irishmen The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association in the Kingdom of Ireland formed in the wake of the French Revolution to secure "an equal representation of all the people" in a national government. Despairing of constitutional reform, ...

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister o ...

Elizabeth Longford Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess of Longford, (''née'' Harman; 30 August 1906 – 23 October 2002), better known as Elizabeth Longford, was a British historian. She was a member of the Royal Society of Literature and was on the board of trustees ...

, ''Wellington:Pillar of State'' (1982) *

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, (18 June 1769 – 12 August 1822), usually known as Lord Castlereagh, derived from the courtesy title Viscount Castlereagh ( ) by which he was styled from 1796 to 1821, was an Anglo-Irish politician ...

Sir Boyle Roche Sir Boyle Roche, 1st Baronet (October 1736, as cited in Some sources, including earlier versions of the ''Dictionary of National Biography'', give the date as 1743. However, since the later date would make Roche rather young to have served with ...

* Thomas Conolly * Sir William Gregory *

Hugh Gough, 1st Viscount Gough Field Marshal Hugh Gough, 1st Viscount Gough, (3 November 1779 – 2 March 1869) was an Irish officer of the British Army. After serving as a junior officer at the seizure of the Cape of Good Hope during the French Revolutionary Wars, Gough com ...

, of the

First Anglo-Sikh War The First Anglo-Sikh War was fought between the Sikh Empire and the British East India Company in 1845 and 1846 in and around the Ferozepur district of Punjab. It resulted in defeat and partial subjugation of the Sikh empire and cession of ...

* Henry Arthur Herbert of Muckross * Abraham Creighton, 2nd Earl Erne *

William Cole, 3rd Earl of Enniskillen William Willoughby Cole, 3rd Earl of Enniskillen, FRS (25 January 180712 November 1886) styled by the courtesy title Viscount Cole until 1840, was an Irish palaeontologist and Conservative Member of Parliament. He also served as the first Impe ...

William Lygon Pakenham, 4th Earl of Longford General William Lygon Pakenham, 4th Earl of Longford (31 January 1819 – 19 April 1887), styled The Honourable William Pakenham before 1860, was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Conservative politician. Early life and education Pakenham was the s ...

Edward Gibson, 1st Baron Ashbourne Edward Gibson, 1st Baron Ashbourne (4 September 1837 – 22 May 1913), was an Anglo-Irish lawyer and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Background and education Born at 22 Merrion Square, Dublin, Gibson was the son of William Gibson J.P. (1808–1872 ...

Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford, KP, MVO (19 October 1864 – 21 August 1915), known as Lord Silchester until 1887, was an Irish peer and soldier. Biography Born in Dublin, Longford was the eldest son of William Pakenham, 4th Earl of Lo ...

David Plunket, 1st Baron Rathmore David Robert Plunket, 1st Baron Rathmore PC, QC (3 December 1838 – 22 August 1919) was an Irish lawyer and Conservative politician. Background and education Plunket was the third son of John Plunket, 3rd Baron Plunket, second son of Wil ...

William Humble Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley William Humble Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley, (25 May 1867 – 29 June 1932), was a British aristocrat, politician, and military officer who served as the fourth Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1908 to 1911. He was previously Lord Lieut ...

In fiction

In the ''

genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

'' of new Sherlock Holmes stories, Peter Tremayne's "The Affray at the Kildare Street Club" appeared in ''The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures'' (1997). The story is set in 1873, when before going up to

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

Holmes is visiting

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

. He solves the theft at the Kildare Street Club of a hair-brush from an Irish duke.

Club Soda

The 'club' in 'club soda' refers to the Kildare Street Club in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, which commissioned them to produce it.

Gallery

File:1 Kildare Street 04.jpg, Portico of the building File:1 Kildare Street 01.jpg, Carved capital File:Carving of monkeys playing billiards (Kildare Street Club).jpg, Decorative carving of monkeys playing billiards

External links

Kildare Street and University Club

Notes

{{coord missing, County Dublin Buildings and structures in Dublin (city) Organisations based in Dublin (city) Politics of pre-partition Ireland Gentlemen's clubs in Ireland 1782 establishments in Ireland 1977 disestablishments in Ireland