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Historic Venues for Meetings & Events
29/10/2019
The days when all meetings and events took place in gloomy hotel ballrooms are long gone. Meetings and Events organisers have now discovered the value of thinking outside the box and seeking out venues that delight, inspire and motivate attendees.
Historic venues have particular resonance in this regard as they tell a powerful story and this story can then be interwoven with the event narrative, creating a holistic, integrated event experience where all elements converge around the core aims and objectives of the event.
Here are 5 historic venues in Dublin City with aesthetically pleasing settings and powerful stories to tell:
GPO Witness History opened three years ago as part of the 1916 commemorations and is a great addition to Dublin's cultural offering. But did you know it can also be hired on an exclusive basis for meetings and events? Renowned for both its historical and architectural significance, GPO Witness History offers a deeply resonant historical backdrop for sit-down dinners of up to 70 guests or stand-up receptions of up to 150.
As far as historic venues around Dublin go, Dublin Castle is probably the oldest with the Mediaeval Tower dating from the reign of King Henry III in the early thirteenth century. St Patrick's Hall, part of the State Apartments, was developed as the Castle's ballroom in the late 1780s and has hosted presidents and monarchs as well as being the setting for Ireland's most significant ceremonial occasion, the inauguration of the President of Ireland. There's also a modern conference facility complete with translation booths. Best for formal dinners of up to 200 guests.
Opened originally as The Blue Coat School in 1783, you can stage a very elegant seated dinner for 180 guests at Blackhall Place, now home of the Law Society of Ireland. Nearby, the other branch of the legal profession in Ireland - the Bar - also has a stunning historic venue available for hire. Built to designs by starchitect of the time, James Gandon (Four Courts and Custom House), Kings Inn dates from 1800 and accommodates around 200 for a formal banquet.
One of Dublin's most magnificent spaces, the Old Library at Trinity College is available for stand up receptions of up to 250 guests. This is one of those historic venues where you get after-hours access to a key attraction, this time the prized Book of Kells which is housed in the same building. The Old Library opened in 1732 following a two decade construction period. The Long Room Library, the pièce de résistance of the entire building holds over 200,000 books and manuscripts. Great for high end stand up receptions.
Croke Park, too, stands proudly amongst the great historic venues of Dublin. While the lands where Croke Park now stands were in private ownership until 1913, Gaelic games have been played in and around this site since 1829. And, of course, Dineen Hill 16, allegedly, is formed from the rubble from buildings on O'Connell Street, destroyed by British bombardments during the Easter rebellion.
Croke Park has hosted epic historic encounters in football and hurling over the decades as well as the highly symbolic Ireland v England 6 Nations Championship match in 2007 which Ireland won by 43 points to 13. Other stand out moments in sports' history include Muhammad Ali's fight against Al "Blue" Lewis in 1972. But Croke Park makes this list of historic venues not merely for its sterling sporting legacy.
Over the decades Croke Park has hosted many large capacity civic events too such as the opening and closing ceremony of the
Special Olympics World Summer Games in 2003.
Croke Park was also the venue for the
Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions hosted by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs over 11 days in May 2008. This international conference was attended by delegates from over 100 states and culminated in the adoption of the Convention on Cluster Munitions which banned the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster bombs.
Historic venues add depth, breadth and that extra layer of narrative and storytelling to meetings and events and are destined to continue as a favourite choice for meetings and events planners in the future. At Croke Park we can help you weave our story into yours and craft a truly extraordinary meetings or event for 10 to 2000 attendees.
Contact us [email protected] if planning an event in Dublin
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