Chancery Street Courthouse is a far from ideal location for cases involving families of children taken into care in Dublin. But since last week such cases have used the 19th century building instead of Dolphin House in Temple Bar.
The move frees up rooms in Dolphin House for other family court business and gives childcare some badly-needed extra space.
The courthouse, behind the Four Courts and next to the Bridewell Garda station, is imposing with its blackened stone, large windows and heavy doors facing onto Chancery Street and a Luas stop. The doors have not been used for many years and to get to the courts, visitors, including children, have to enter via an iron gate at the side.
Once inside the gate, a grey Portakabin on the left is set aside for court-appointed guardians. Around the corner a long prefab sits at the end of a yard, earmarked as rooms for social workers, solicitors and barristers.
Beside it, the wall, separating the courthouse from Greek Street, is topped with curls of razor wire.
Converted cells
Three doors open from the courthouse onto the yard; the first accesses Court 45; the large, central doors lead to Courts 46 and 44, and the third door leads to the courts office, Legal Aid Board office and a series of consultation rooms. These are mainly in converted cells, freshly decorated, but gloomy, below street level and with obscured and barred windows.
Inside the central doors, the visitor steps onto old flagstones and faces staircases to the left and right, rising up to the courtrooms, and central stairs going down to toilet facilities.
Once upstairs, there is a seating area and four sets of tables and chairs, separated by dark wooden screens, presumably for practitioners to have quiet, but not too private, chats before going into court. There is a newly installed reception desk in the corner, and the area is large and airy, lit from high above by a skylight and from over the doors, by a broad fan light. Everywhere, there is the smell of fresh paint.
Protected structure
Because the court, often called the Bridewell, is a protected structure, there was only so much the
Courts Service
could do to renovate it. The courtrooms are largely unchanged. In 46, the judge sits high up, with the original, impressive, canopy overhead. The walls have been coated in pale grey and the woodwork is a darker shade. The body of the court is dominated by a large, wooden, rectangular box, which covers the access staircase to what were the cells below.
Well back in court, on old wooden benches, parents and others can sit, where they could struggle to hear proceedings. The design of the courtroom, with its high ceilings, space, air, and benches, is the antithesis of the low-ceilinged “hotel room” feel of the Dolphin House courtroom, with its ordinary, upholstered office chairs. It can be admired for its grandeur, but it is not family-friendly.
Court 44 is much the same, but in 45, the judge sits much lower down, relieving the sense of hierarchy.
“It is what it is; a 19th century building,” one practitioner said. Another described it as a daunting place, but liked the extra space. And a third described it as “a bit grim”, but said they would make the best of it until the long-promised new family court complex is developed at Hammond Lane.
Courts Service staff are settling in too, and hoping early teething problems, including internet access, will be sorted out quickly.
But there is no escaping the coldness of the building; such old stone is hard to heat.
And there is no escaping that the old court was built with intimidation in mind.
It was designed to strike fear and awe into the hearts of criminals and no amount of fresh paint can disguise that.
