Patrick Comerford
When I was staying in Rathmines this week during a very brief family visit to Dublin, I took another look at some interesting late 19th and early 20th century buildings on Rathmines Road, including the former YMCA building, Kensington Lodge around the corner from it on Grove Park, the former Belfast Bank on a prominent corner with Rathgar Road, and the former Kodak building, one of two listed Art Deco buildings in Dublin.
The former YMCA building on the corner of Lower Rathmines Road and Grove Park was designed by the Dublin architect George Palmer Beater and was built in red brick 1911 by J & P Good. It is a landmark redbrick building near Portobello building, with some terracotta features and interesting lettering on the façade.
The main entrance is now permanently locked, and the whole building is shabby in appearance, but it is still possible to appreciate its early 20th century elegance. The lettering above the porch reads: ‘Rathmines YMCA Erected 1911’.
Higher up the façade, the lettering reads: ‘Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Psalm cxxvii. 1’ It is a quotation from Psalm 127: 1 that reflects not only that this was built for the Young Men’s Christian Association, but that also reflects the evangelical faith of the architect.
George Palmer Beater (1850-1928), an important church architect at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. I am familiar with Beater’s work because I worked in one of his buildings for many years. He was born in Dublin on 16 June 1850, the son of Orlando L Beater (1817-1908) and Abigail née Palmer (1824-1891). His father was chairman of Arnott’s and the family lived at Glenarm, Terenure Road East.
Beater was educated in Dublin and articled to the architect Alfred Gresham Jones (1824-1915), who also designed many churches, including Grosvenor Road Baptist Church and Athlone Methodist Church.
Beater designed the Fetherstonhaugh Convalescent Home for the Adelaide Hospital at Braemor Park in 1894. This former convalescent home is now the main redbrick building of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, with the chapel, lecture and seminar rooms, offices and the rooms of the academic staff. I was on the staff of CITI for 15 years, four years part-time (2002-2006) and 11 years full-time (2006-2017), with a room upstairs in Beater’s original building, looking out onto the lawn and facing the morning sunrise.
Beater’s other works include: a new entrance porch for the former Nelson Monument (Nelson’s Pillar) on O’Connell Street, Baptist churches on Harcourt Street and North Circular Road, Dublin, Cork Baptist Church, the former Baptist Church in Limerick, the Slievemore Hotel, Dugort, Achill Island, Co Mayo, for the trustees of the Achill Mission Estate, the Dublin Medical Mission on Chancery Place, the Presbyterian church hall in Rathgar, the façade of Merrion Hall (now the Davenport Hotel), first built by Alfred Gresham Jones in 1863, and Northumberland Hall (now Dun Laoghaire Evangelical Church) for the Plymouth Brethren, Woolworth in Henry Street, the Northern Bank in Bray, Co Wicklow, and the YMCA in Rathmines.
Beater also designed much of the work on Arnott’s premises in Henry Street, Dublin, many of the premises rebuilt on Sackville Street (O’Connell Street), Dublin, after the 1916 Rising, and some of the houses on Grosvenor Road, Rathmines.
He was the architect of the Elvery’s Building on O’Connell Street, and many extensions to both the Adelaide Hospital and Stewart’s Hospital.
In recent years, there has been much interest in his work on the Mill Street Schools and Mission Buildings complex at 10 Mill Street, Dublin 8. When this early 18th century, five-bay building was acquired by the Irish Church Missions in 1891, Beater was commissioned to remodel it as part of the Mill Street Schools and Mission Buildings. His work included building a buttressed porch in place of the door-case and reconstructing the top floor with a conventional hipped roof centring on a corbelled gable. The building has been carefully restored in recent years and is now in use as offices.
Beater worked from offices at 3 Molesworth Street (1873), Liverpool & London Chambers, Foster Place (1874), 17 Sackville Street Lower (1874-1882, 1886-1915), 57 Dawson Street (1883-1886), and 10 Leinster Street (1916-1926).
He was married twice. He married Isabel Stokes, daughter of William James Stokes, of Dublin, in 1880, and they were the parents of one son, Leslie Orlando Beater. Isabel died on 28 January 1882 and was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery.
Beater married his second wife, Constance Perry, in 1896. She was the daughter of R Middleton Perry, JP, of 73 Leinster Road, Rathmines. Her sister, Annette Marion Perry, was secretary of the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission. George and Constance were the parents of two daughters and one son, George Perry Beater who died in infancy.
He was a member of the Architectural Association of Ireland (1899-1908), a member (1878) and a fellow (1919) of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (FRIAI), and a member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (1898).
He was a member of Rathmines and Rathgar Town Council, supported many charities in Dublin and was a governor of the Royal Hospital, Dublin, the Old Men’s Home on Leeson Park, and the Protestant Orphanage in Harold’s Cross.
Beater lived at 1 Rostrevor Terrace, Rathgar (1873-1879); St Helen’s, Highfield Road, Rathgar (1881-1882); Glenarm, Terenure Road, Rathgar (1883-1896); and Minore, St Kevin’s Park, Rathmines (1897-1928).
He died at 9 Brighton Road, Rathgar, the home of his brother, Dr Orlando Beater, on 8 February 1928, and was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery with his first wife. His obituary in the Irish Builder described him as ‘a kindly, courteous gentleman, liked and respected by all who knew him.’
When his widow Constance Beater died on 23 March 1945 at 9 Rathdown Park, Terenure, she was buried at Friends’ Burial Ground, Temple Hill, Blackrock.
His brother, Dr Orlando Palmer Beater of Terenure Road, Rathgar, was a solicitor and a qualified but non-practising medical doctor and surgeon. For many years, Dr Orlando Beater was a member of the board of Arnott’s and a director of the publishers and printers Cherry and Smalldridge, as well as a governor of the Royal Hospital for Incurables, Stewart’s Hospital and the Northbrook Home.
The YMCA shut up shop in Rathmines many years ago, but Beater’s building near Portobello Road remains a landmark on the corner of Lower Rathmines Road and Grove Park.
The side of the building facing onto Grove Park may once have been a chapel as part of the YMCA facilities. It was renamed Kensington Hall in recent years when the Leeson Park School of Music moved in, and it uses its big yellow door as part of its promotional images.
Kensington Lodge takes its name from Kensington Lodge, on the opposite side of Grove Park, quite a fantastically ornate brickwork and terracotta Queen Anne style house designed by William Isaac Chambers for himself in 1882.
But more about Kensington Lodge in the days to come, hopefully.
