Railings have been proposed to protect the Ambassador Theatre from ‘corrosive’ blood and urine, according to The Irish Times.

On Moncrieff today, the paper's Dublin Editor Olivia Kelly said the protected structure has been the subject of vandalism and fires over the years.

It comes as an application has been made to Dublin City Council to install 1.7m high railings outside the Ambassador Theatre which first opened on Parnell Square in 1974.

The application was made by the Millennium Theatre Company who said they wish to "protect patrons, staff and the historic building from threats to safety and anti-social behaviour."

Ms Kelly said the company has been motivated to install railings because of damage made to the building itself.

“Fires are an obvious thing to damage a building but they also say that blood and urine is corrosive to the old stone,” she said.

“They also feel that people are going in and out of the building, whether staff or people going to see a show are under threat from unsavoury elements.”

Proposal

The proposal has led to public backlash, according to Ms Kelly.

“Heritage bodies aren’t happy about this because it wasn’t part of the original design of the building,” she said.

“You also have an awful lot of clutter at that end of Parnell Square, the O’Connell Street end where there is a Luas line going by – it’s a very busy junction.

“For people crossing the road, the old footpath if I could call it that, is not terribly wide - so that plaza in front of the entrance gives people a little more breathing space and somewhere to stand when crossing the road.

“If that was railed off it would be quite tight around there, particularly with the Luas going by right in front of it.”

The Ambassador Theatre in Dublin. Image: Tibor Bognar / Alamy Stock Photo

Ms Kelly said bringing the railings out to where the footpath starts would be using up a big “chunk of land”.

“The reason for that is there are quite a few tents being erected there and they want to eliminate that,” she said.

“There’s a hard flagstone surface and patch of grass with a tree in it that provides people with a bit of shelter – they want to eliminate its use for erecting tents there.”

Purposes

Ms Kelly said the building has been used for an eclectic range of purposes over the years.

“After it was a cinema, it opened for a while for a music venue up until 2008 which I thought was a great venue for gigs,” she said.

“Then they started doing these big dinosaur exhibitions and human body exhibitions.

“What they said in the application is they want to reinstate it as a theatre/exhibition which can mean a lot of things.”

She added that a decision could be made on the railings by Dublin City Council within one month to six weeks considering the small number of documents involved in the application.

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Main image: The Ambassador Theatre in Dublin. Image: Wirestock, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo