Transition
Following the establishment of the Irish Free State a number of possible uses for the empty residences in the Phoenix Park were considered, from sale or demolition to turning the Chief Secretary's Lodge into a residence for the President of the Executive Council (prime minister). The latter suggestion, by the Minister for Finance, Ernest Blythe was rejected by then president W. T. Cosgrave. In the mid 1920s plans were made to move the Governor-General of the Irish Free State, Timothy Michael Healy, from his large and costly Viceregal Lodge official residence to the smaller Chief Secretary's Lodge across the road. Healy however expressed a wish that, if he was to move at all, it should be to his private home in Chapelizod. Believing that Healy's home was too exposed and a security risk, the Executive Council of the Irish Free State (cabinet) chose to leave Healy in the Viceregal Lodge. Instead the Chief Secretary's Lodge was rented on a ten year lease to the United States government, to become a combined ambassador's residence and embassy.
In January 1938, with the American lease nearly up, the Irish Government decided to make the Chief Secretary's Lodge the official residence of the President of Ireland. The decision was rescinded when a report from the Office of Public Works advised the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera that the building was structurally unsound and would need expensive remedial work of the sort that could not be completed in time for the planned presidential entry into office in June. The President was later installed in the vacant Viceregal Lodge nearby. The building was re-rented to the United States government. The embassy was later moved to a purpose-built building, leaving the Lodge as the Ambassador's residence.
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Famous quotes containing the word transition:
“There is not any present moment that is unconnected with some future one. The life of every man is a continued chain of incidents, each link of which hangs upon the former. The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace. Evil may at some future period bring forth good; and good may bring forth evil, both equally unexpected.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“The god or hero of the sculptor is always represented in a transition from that which is representable to the senses, to that which is not.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When I was going through my transition of being famous, I tried to ask God why was I here? what was my purpose? Surely, it wasn’t just to win three gold medals. There has to be more to this life than that.”
—Wilma Rudolph (1940–1994)