Culture Minister Josepha Madigan has slammed the plans to convert the house featured in James Joyce’s works into a hostel.
Ms Madigan said that turning the iconic landmark into a hostel will “undermine, diminish and devalue a site of cultural heritage importance”.
The comments came it has been proposed that the house at 15 Ushers Island in the city centre will be converted into a 56-bed hostel and cafe, The Irish Times reports.
The house was featured in Joyce’s story “The Dead” in Dubliners and his aunts lived there in the 1890s.
The protected structure was sold for €650,000 two years ago and property investors Fergus McCabe and Brian Stynes are hoping to turn it into a hostel.
Planning documents submitted by the Department of Arts, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht state that the proposal “represents an inconsonant outcome for this building in terms of retaining and presenting its cultural and literary significance”.
