A protest made up of musicians, artists and drag queens is to descend on An Bord Pleanala in an effort to stop the destruction of a beloved Dublin beer garden.
The second Rock for Culture event will this time focus on the planning authority's offices after a protest outside the Holiday Inn hotel that is to be extended on O'Connell Street. It's taking place in an effort to show what will be lost if Fibber Magees is forced to shut its famous beer garden. If plans go ahead, the Living Room and Murrays Pub will also be affected.
Dublin City Council have approved plans for a six-storey extension, which is designed to provide an additional 95 guest rooms. The extension will bring to 309 the number of rooms at the Holiday Inn Express hotel, which is located on the corner of O'Connell Street and Cathal Brugha Street.
Read more: Iconic Dublin beer garden facing closure due to hotel extension
The second Rock for Culture protest is set to take place this coming Thursday, September 22, at 1pm outside the An Bord Pleanala offices on Marlborough Street. Among the issues discussed will be:
- What the city has lost due to lack of government care
- The injection the arts needs immediately as well as for the future
- Addressing the city development plan
- The next tactics towards the Holiday Inn
Over 10k people have signed a petition against the plans. There has also been a video series launched on Instagram called "What does Fibbers mean to you?" Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty previously told Dublin Live that the closure of the beer garden is "incredibly disappointing".
He said: "This is one of the only beer garden spaces in the inner city and there are three distinct pubs in the area Fibber Magee's, The Living Room, and Murray's. It's just incredibly disappointing to see more hotels being catered for, I think people are sick of hotels. So many venues in the last five years have been closed because of new hotels, it's just hotel after hotel."
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