Liberty Hall: Building a perfect postmodern beast in 1960s Dublin

Michael O’Loughlin’s latest collection of prose and verse explores the creation of the capital’s tallest building from an original and unusual angle

Liberty Hall becomes more than a physical space in Micheal O’Loughlin’s book. Picture: Feargal Ward

POETRY/MEMOIR

Liberty Hall

By Michael O’Loughlin

New Island, €12.95

One of Austin Clarke’s later poems described the opening of Liberty Hall in 1965. This postmodern 17-storey tower was designed by the Irish trade union movement to represent progress and modernity.

Its non-reflective windows (suggesting openness and allowing passers-by to see in) were replaced after a UVF bomb seven years later. For decades, however, it remained Dublin’s tallest building, looking down over a state whose starting ...