City centre social housing due to be completed by end of year

A SOCIAL housing development that will provide new homes at unused, derelict, and vacant sites on Barrack Street — including the former Nancy Spain’s bar — is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The site was the subject of extensive local and national interest in 2021, when skeletal remains of six bodies were uncovered.

Cork City Council confirmed that the delivery of the new homes is programmed for the end of 2023.

A spokesperson said that the archaeological discoveries “impacted on localised areas of the site in terms of programme effects”, but that the contractor “was able to progress works in other areas of the site to enable them to work towards the delivery of new homes for the end of 2023”.

During the monitoring of ground reductions to the rear of the Barrack St facade of the former Nancy Spain’s pub, human skeletal remains were found just below the construction formation level in that area of the development.

Four of the six individuals were uncovered within a mass burial pit. Small fragments of bone taken from two of the skeletons to facilitate radiocarbon dating returned dates from the period between 1447 and 1636.

“The City Council is awaiting the issue of the final specialist reports, at which point there may be new information that can be reported on,” a council spokesperson said. 

“Cork City Council looks forward to the delivery of new homes on this site in 2023, in an important city centre location, whilst also remediating a number of long derelict sites with a high-quality and much-needed residential development.”

Independent councillor Mick Finn welcomed the expected completion date of the new units.

“It has taken a long time to get to this point, but it’s great to see the Barrack St housing will be completed by the end of the year and probably allocated in early 2024,” he said.

Mr Finn said the residential development faced several obstacles but that when completed “the much-needed housing will lift the street and breathe new life into a part of it that was derelict for years”.

Elsewhere on the street, adjoining properties 118 and 119 are also primed for development after city councillors voted last November to sell the long-derelict buildings acquired by the local authority using compulsory purchase order powers in 2021.

Speaking at a council meeting last year, the city council’s director of corporate affairs and international relations, Paul Moynihan, said the properties were deemed unsuitable to be developed as social housing by the council’s housing directorate.

He said the purchaser, a business owner on Barrack St, had a “track record of deliverability” and had proposed a commercial use at lower level with residential above and that the redevelopment works at 118 and 119 would be “another boost” for Barrack St. “Such housing will be great for local schools, clubs and businesses with new families moving in; it’s a bright chapter in the great history of Barrack St and long overdue,” he said.