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The CHQ Building, formerly known as Stack A, is an industrial building in
Dublin, Ireland Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...
. CHQ stands for "Custom House Quay", named for the nearby
Custom House A custom house or customs house was traditionally a building housing the offices for a jurisdictional government whose officials oversaw the functions associated with importing and exporting goods into and out of a country, such as collecting ...
. Known as the Tobacco Store to dockworkers, it was built in 1820 to store cargos of tobacco, tea and spirits. Tobacco and tea were kept in separate compartments above ground. Wine and spirit casks were stored in the vaults below ground.


Description

The building was designed by the Scottish engineer John Rennie, with his son of the same name working as his principal assistant. When it was constructed, the building had one of the largest single interior spaces in the city, and its brick external walls enclosed a space of more than 8,000sqm. The structure was supported by a cast iron frame supporting a slated roof. No wood was used in the construction. The building measures 155m by 55m and of the original nine vaults that run west to east and cover the entire footprint of the building, eight and a half remain after the building was reduced by 5m at its southern end in 1884 in order to widen Custom House Quay. A total of eleven warehouses or "stacks", as well as three deep-water docks were built on reclaimed land making up the Custom House Docks complex. A description of the CHQ Building dating from 1821 by the Rev. George Newenham Wright, an Anglican clergyman, noted that: :"''the tobacco store (500 feet by 160, and capable of containing 3,000 hogsheads), the plan of which was given by John Rennie, Esq asnine vaults beneath, which altogether afford perfect and convenient storage for 4,500 pipes of wine, allowing a walk behind the heads of the pipes as well as between them; these vaults are lighted by means of thick lenses set in iron plates in the floor of the tobacco store; but this is not sufficient to supersede the necessity of candle light. heroof is supported by metal frame-work of an ingenious construction .supported by three rows of cylindrical metal pillars, 26 in each row; these rest upon others of granite, which are continued through the stone floor into the vaults beneath.''"


Use

In addition to its use as a storehouse, because of the large interior space, the building has also been put to other uses. For example, on 22 October 1856, the building was the chosen venue for a banquet, paid for by the citizens of Dublin, in honour of those Irish soldiers who had served in the British Army during the
Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included t ...
. The 'Great National Banquet' was the brainchild of Fergus Farrell, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, who had been a deputy to
Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (I) ( ga, Dónall Ó Conaill; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilizat ...
. It is estimated that one third of the 111,000 men who served in the war were Irish, including 114 of those involved in the
Charge of the Light Brigade The Charge of the Light Brigade was a failed military action involving the British light cavalry led by James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, Lord Cardigan against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854 in the Crimea ...
. The guests at the banquet included 3,628 soldiers from regiments quartered in Dublin and the four provinces, as well as 1,000 non-military guests, principally subscribers, seated in the gallery overlooking the hall.
Hugh Gough, 1st Viscount Gough Field Marshal Hugh Gough, 1st Viscount Gough, (3 November 1779 – 2 March 1869) was an Irish officer of the British Army. After serving as a junior officer at the seizure of the Cape of Good Hope during the French Revolutionary Wars, Gough co ...
, the Tipperary-born Colonel-in-Chief of the 60th Royal Rifles, addressed and toasted the attendees. In the early 2000s, the protected structure was restored by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority. Irishman
Neville Isdell Edward Neville Isdell (born 8 June 1943 in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland) is an Irish businessman, former chair and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company and currently president of the WWF. Early life and career Isdell moved to Zambia at the age of ten, ...
, a former chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola, along with Mervyn Greene, purchased the building in late 2013 with the intention of further developing the structure. Today, the building contains a number of businesses, including the
EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, located in Dublin's Docklands, covers the history of the Irish diaspora and emigration to other countries. It was designed by the London-based design firm Event Communications, and was voted as "Europe's Leadi ...
and
Dogpatch Labs Dogpatch Labs is a startup and innovation hub located in the CHQ building, in the Silicon Docks area of Dublin, supporting the startup ecosystem through incubation and acceleration programmes, educational events and a tech community of over 500 ...
.


See also

*
George's Dock, Dublin George's Dock () is a Georgian dock in the Docklands area of Dublin forming part of the International Financial Services Centre. History Located near the Custom House, the dock was originally built in 1821 as a working maritime dock and was ...


References

{{Coord, 53.3488, -6.248, display=title Dublin Docklands Buildings and structures in Dublin (city) Office buildings in the Republic of Ireland