Mount Temple Hall reopens following refurbishment

Mount Temple Community Hall has recently reopened following a major refurbishment.

The refurbishment started construction in January 2020 after a number of years of discussions and was completed in December 2020, with Covid restrictions delaying the opening of the hall until now.

Speaking about the development, which was shown to the local community at a viewing day on Sunday last, Secretary of Mount Temple Community Hall Development Committee Marie Allen said she hopes the hall can now be used more broadly by the whole community.

“We’ve always had Foróige in Mount Temple, for example, and we would like to see that up and running again in the hall, as well as others like Age Action, dancing and drama groups.

“We would also like to see different organisations like women’s groups or men’s sheds use the hall as a social area, and perhaps yoga, Pilates and music lessons too.”

Originally a school built in the 1800s, the hall has received two extensions in the past, the most recent of which took place in 2003.

“The hall was in a bad state I have to say,” Marie said.

“Although it was well-used by different groups and people, some were still not inclined to be use it for the simple reason that the heating system was poor, the hall was damp and overall, it wasn’t in a great condition.”

Discussions for improvements to the hall originally began in 2014, but delays meant progress on the project wasn’t made until 2018.

“We had an Age Action group that was using the hall a lot, but the group didn’t really want to use the hall because it was too cold,” Marie said. “That hindered us from doing activities we wanted to and for the group to reach its full potential.

“Robert Troy visited us in the hall during an election campaign and he encouraged us to go for Leader funding. We eventually hired a consultancy firm of architects and engineers in 2018, and Leader gave us 75% funding.

“Peter Ormond with Leader was a great help to us. He really helped us along the whole way with applying for funding.”

The cost was projected to amount to €290,000, and Leader funding covered €217,000 of the cost. Additional costs came to €30,000 which the local community has been fundraising for through various initiatives such as golf classes, Christmas concerts and flower demonstrations.

“We had very small windows and they were very high above the floor so ventilation was poor because we couldn’t open them up,” Marie explained about the work carried out.

“We have brought them back down to their original size, put in a new heating system and a new roof using some of the old slates that were still available to us. It was the architect’s idea to keep some of the old part of the school.

“The hall has been dry-lined, a new kitchen has been installed and we’ve constructed an area to the back of the hall that could be used as a barbeque area in times to come.”

Marie now hopes that the community will use the hall “to its full potential” going forward, and said that a lot of organisations are already showing an interest in using it.

Updates on the hall can be found on the newly launched Facebook page ‘Mount Temple Community Hall.’