Patrick Comerford
University Hall, also known as Hatch Hall, on Hatch Street, was an integral part of students life in Dublin for over a century, and is an impressive part of Dublin’s architectural heritage.
Since it closed, the former Jesuit-run university hall has been used as accommodation for asylum seekers and there are plans today to turn it into a 60-bedroom 5-star hotel.
Hatch Hall dominates this corner close to the junction where Lower Hatch Street, Lower Leeson Street and Upper Pembroke Street meet. It its heyday as student accommodation, Hatch Hall was close to University College Dublin, then on Earlsfort Terrace, and it is close to University Church and Newman House on St Stephen’s Green, to nightlife in Leeson Street and Harcourt Street, and to the Iveagh Gardens and Grafton Street.
Hatch Hall was designed in 1910 by the Dublin architect Charles B Powell (1881-1956) in a late-Victorian and Gothic Revival style and the building offers an interesting contrast to the predominantly simple Georgian architecture of the houses and buildings in this quarter of Dublin.
Charles B Powell was born Co Dublin, a younger son of the English-born stained-glass artist and church decorated Henry Powell (1835-1882), and his wife Ellen (McCormack). Henry Powell was a partner in Hardman and Powell studios, which worked closely with AWN Pugin, and was a nephew of the Birmingham ecclesiastical decorator John Hardman and a brother-in-law of Edward Welby Pugin’s sister Anne, who married John Hardman Powell. Henry set up the Hardman studios in Grafton Street in 1853, and the business continued as Earley & Powells.
Charles Powell was an infant when his father died in 1882. He went to school in Blackrock College, and may have been trained as architect by George Coppinger Ashlin.
Powell became something of a recluse in later life, living with his widowed mother until about 1940 and then living alone and working from his home on Maxwell Road, Rathmines, where his two dogs ‘protected him fervently’. A bearded figure who rode around Dublin on a bicycle, he was known as ‘God on a bike’.
His connections with the Hardman, Pugin and Ashlin families introduced him to the church clients who gave him with most of his commissions, including churches throughout Ireland and at least one church in England: Saint Mary’s Catholic Church in St Helen’s, Lancashire.
Powell was the favoured architect of the Dublin Jesuits in Dublin designing extensions for Rathfarnham Castle, and alteration at Belvedere College and Milltown Park. He also worked for the Carmelites at Aungier Street and Terenure College, the gates of the Passionist Monastery at Mount Argus, and on a number of convents, as well as works for the Neptune Rowing Club.
At first, Francis Bergin was approached to design the new hall. But in 1911 the Jesuits commissioned Powell to design their University Hostel in Hatch Street, a Gothic building in bright red brick, rising conspicuously above the neighbouring terraces.
The nine-bay four-storey residential hall was built by W Connolly & Son of Dominick Street in 1910-1913. The central gable-fronted five-storey entrance front has carved limestone copings and a cross finial at its apex and is flanked by full-height octagonal turrets to north or front elevation. The segmental-headed carriage-arch has a carved limestone cornice and a decorative wrought-iron double-leaf gate, with Tudor rose detail. The decorative tympanum has a shield with a gold leaf IHS monogram.
There is a 12-bay return to the east, and a 13-bay two-storey rear south block incorporating a five-bay, bow-ended first floor chapel and enclosing a courtyard.
Other features include attic accommodation, a canted oriel corner bay, canted oriel windows, turrets. Pointed arches, a pitched slate roof with clay ridge tiles, a red brick parapet with limestone coping, stepped red-brick chimneystacks with limestone copings, stepped red brick cornices, gabled dormer windows with timber bargeboards, conical copper roofs and finials on the turrets, copper gable-fronted projections, gargoyles and wrought-iron railings.
The north façade is particularly fine, with limestone detailing used to good effect to provide a contrast with the warm red brick, as well as emphasising the horizontal lines, and its copper and crenellated turret roofs punctuating he skyline.
The five lancet windows in the chapel commemorating Joseph Dolan were commissioned by the Jesuit Aubrey Gwynn and made in 1947 by Evie Hone (1894-1955). The windows depict the Lamb, the Fish, the Pelican, the Dove and the Alpha and Omega.
The Jesuits opened University Hall or Hatch Hall in in 1913, and it provided accommodation for third level male students, mainly at UCD when it was based around the corner at Earlsfort Terrace, until the hall closed 20 years ago in 2004.
The Jesuits promoted a spirit of 'Friendship, Faith, Involvement', and the hall was well known for its community spirit. The hall’s motto was Sic Luceat Lux Vestra, ‘In this way let your light shine’.
Initially, Hatch Hall accommodated 70 students, a dean and other officials at the turn of the century. At first, the students were mostly studying medicine in UCD. But the intake grew progressively larger throughout the 20th century to over 100 male students a year.
The hall supported a number of societies including film, debating and photography societies, and encouraged voluntary work in the community through local charities and homework clubs. The highlight of the hall’s calendar was the annual ‘Hatch Ball’ in the Shelbourne Hotel on Saint Stephen’s Green. Past residents have included Desmond O’Malley, founder and former leader of the Progressive Democrats, the former Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Michael O’Leary, Ryanair CEO.
When Hatch Hall closed in 2004, it was bought for €16 million by the property developer Gerry Barrett. He planned to develop the hall into a hotel, but permission for an 81-bedroom hotel was overturned. Later the building served as a direct provision centre, with accommodation for 365 asylum seekers and refugees.
The building was bought by Red Carnation Hotels for €20 million in 2019, with plans to convert it into a 5-star boutique hotel. In 2013, the landmark building was sold yet again for €23 million, to Rosado Developments, a Wexford-based company. The property came with planning permission for conversion into a 60-bedroom luxury hotel with a gross floor area of 7,292 square metres.
Meanwhile, the five Evie Hone windows have been relocated from the chapel in University Hall to the Ignatian Room to Saint Francis Xavier Church, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin. According to the author and historian Frank Rogers says the windows are some of the best examples in Ireland of religious icons in stained glass.
The Jesuits were among Evie Hone’s main patrons, and some of her finest windows are in the Jesuit Retreat House, Manresa, in Dollymount, where they were moved when the Retreat House in Rahan, Co Offaly, closed in 1991.
