Long before the Luas dinged down Dawson, before kitchens sparked their stove to smoke each mornin’, Joshua Dawson traced a street from bog to map, raised a house of brick and virtue, and the city vowed: together, we will build a future.
In the Mansion House — Teach an Ard-Mhéra — ceilings sheltered the storm, and sheltered the stranger. And one Round Room, a crown of oak and light, heard a nation clear its throat. In 1919: An Chéad Dáil gathered — murmurs grew into language, language into declarations, declarations into duty. That circle still rings with what might be.
Dawson Street turned its years like a book. A supper room rose and fell, rose and fell again — 1864, 1881, 1891 — three chapters of the same feast. Over the years this hall has held: the Young Scientists Exhibition, the World Irish Dancing Championships, Ideal Homes and fashion shows, and the Millennium — when Dublin was great in ’88.
In 2005, FIRE lifts the cloche on itself: stained glass alive, vaulted ribs exhaling — an old room reborn, learning the language of flame. By 2013, the sunroom gleamed — an architect’s hush of daylight, and Dublin, ever famished, gathered at its glow.
From spark to flame, from fire to future. We break bread, we feed each other.
This city needs you. This city sees you.
This day isn’t about awards, or the famous faces who once sat here — many have passed through. From presidents to popstars — and the odd one is still dodging their bill. Today is for the true custodians — who carry the city each day, so it may rise each morning.
The Gardaí and Civil Defence — anchors when tempests test the timbers. Dublin Bus and An Post — arteries of movement and message, carrying us, connecting us. Nurses and midwives from Rotunda, Holles Street, and CHI — where first cries are heard, and healing begins.
Teachers and SNA’s — who bring wonder to the weekday. Family carers and LauraLynn — embodying love in acts of constancy. The Capuchin Day Centre — affirming that dignity is the right of all. YMCA — building tomorrow together.
The Coast Guard, Defence Forces, St John’s, Order of Malta — the first light answering when alarms flare. Dublin City Council, Dublin Chamber — the civic grip on the rudder of change. Tour guides, historians, librarians — keepers of memory, so we remember ourselves.
The staff of FIRE, past and present — chefs, servers, managers — turning a shift into a welcome, a table into a hearth, and keeping the wine flowing just enough so the speeches sound better.
From spark to flame, from fire to future. We break bread, we feed each other.
This city needs you. This city sees you.
We know Dublin can be hard. Carved us thin with famine and emigration. Streets blazing one day, silent the next. Recessions hollowing every pocket. Headlines weighing heavy. House keys that don’t fit a door.
Yet — agus fós — we gather here, in a hall built on civic resolve. Sure if there’s a problem, there’s a person. And if there’s a person, there’ll be a plan. Look about this table — a city is honoured by those who dine within it. Today, Dublin itself is seated here.
This is the meitheal — the civic chorus, that keeps the capital singing. And if you think your gestures slip unseen — they don’t. Such mercies build a city. So often reserved, we summon gratitude into communal light.
We raise our glass to the First Citizens — past and present, to the Lord Mayor and all assembled here, to all who preserve the circle of the round room, who turn a venue into a village for the length of a lunch. We break bread to break loneliness. We pass the plate as we pass the baton — old hands to young hands — saying: mind this, mind each other.
You’re the spark that gets the blaze going, even in the rain. You’re the calm in a crowded corridor. You are the proof this city dares to call itself a community.
From spark to flame, from fire to future. We break bread, we feed each other.
This city needs you. This city sees you.
Before we part, a nod to the house: to Dawson, bold enough to build on bog — to architects who taught daylight to live in glass. To servers who mastered the choreography of service. To chefs whose pans rolled thunder into flavour. To managers who returned this hall to its people.
May this chamber hold the gravity of your work, and the grace you bestow. May its stained glass glow with enduring radiance. Its vaulted ceiling resound forever: comhghairdeas, fair play. And when you step outside later, walk anew — knowing the city bears witness to you.
When the dishes are done and the cups have clinked, we stand, face to face, and give the promise Dublin’s always made: See you tomorrow.
For it isn’t the speeches or the steak, but the people who set a table where hope takes its seat. You are the flame that keeps FIRE alive. You are the heat that makes this house a home.
From spark to flame, from fire to future. We break bread, we feed each other.
This city needs you. This city sees you.
