Mystery Photograph Location Resolved

The Ruins of the Metropole Hotel 1916

A big thanks to Mick O'Farrell for identifying the precise location of the picture of my Dad, Fred Nutty and his cousin Behan below

Fred Nutty (1925 - 2012) and his cousin John Behan

I was barking up a similar tree and found the following add in the Evening Hearld from 1955 which listed the Silver Grill as part of the Metropole which also appears in my Dad's photo

Metropole ad from Evening Herald in 1955

Mick was kind enough to send a picture of the Metropole from around the same time and if you look closely you can see the SILVER GRILL listed on the right side of the marquee.

Mid century view of the Metropole Cinema

The Metropole of 1922 - 1972 housed a cinema, ballroom and restaurant and was a replacement for the hotel of the same name which had been obliterated during the 1916 Rising. It's not surprising that little was left of the hotel as it stood on the same side of the street and only a few yards from the General Post Office (GPO) which had been the headquarters of the rebel leader and as such had received much attention courtesy of British artillery. It is these ruins that are depicted in the lead image of this post

The predecessory hotel was every bit as grand as its successor entertainment  palace and dated from the early 1890s. Apparently the hotel had been cobbled together from four Georgian townhouses using exterior architectural ironwork to present a unified building

Metropole Hotel 1893

The successor cinema, like its predessor was not to survive and sadly the site is now occupied by the mundane replacement building now occupied by Penneys

Penneys O'Connell Street