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Thursday, July 29, 2010
Fire ruins famous house
BY MARY MURPHY
A DEVASTATED Kenmare man is facing the prospect of rebuilding his family business from the ground up after a raging fire ripped through and destroyed much of the historic, award-winning building in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Peter Hanley watched his life’s work go up in flames just after 2am on Saturday morning after being called to the scene of the blaze on Henry Street by alert neighbours who noticed the fire and alerted the emergency services.
A total of four units of the Kerry Fire Service battled with the rampant fire with flames reportedly shooting up to 16 feet into the night sky at the height of the incident. On eyewitness told The Kingdom that the fire was like a scene from the towering inferno.
The blaze completely devastated Mr Hanley’s traditional barber shop and the upper floor of an adjoining building was also damaged by smoke and water.
At the height of the blaze more than 10 people had to be evacuated from two neighbouring homes and businesses but there was nobody injured.
"Luckily nobody was living above the barber shop which had previously been the Hanley family home. The fire spread so quickly and at one stage there were real fears for other buildings on the street," said the eyewitness.
Peter Hanley was born in the now destroyed Henry Street property in the 1940s and spent the last four decades working from the landmark building.
The property, one of the oldest in Kenmare, dates back to the 1860s and it was one of seven identical stone-fronted houses with feature unusual fan shaped windows and doors.
The Henry Street property was one of the most admired buildings in what is widely regarded as the heritage part of the town where traditional architecture is seen as one of the many visitor attractions.
A real slice of history, the building won a major national award in recent years.
In 2006, when the ground floor operated as an interiors and collectables store called The White Room, it won the overall award for the best shopfront in Ireland in the national tidy towns competition. The ground floor of the building, which was being offered for rent, was also extensively damaged in the blaze.
All thoughts will now turn to rebuilding the historic structure to as close to its original state as possible and preserving the integral architecture of the town.
An understandably upset Mr Hanley told The Kingdom on Monday that he plans to fully restore the building and, in the meantime, he will operate his barber business from a rented premises directly across the street.
Gardaí in Kenmare are investigating and a forensic examination has been conducted at the scene of the blaze.
The fire is not being treating as suspicious and it is understood that fire officers believe it may have been caused by an electrical fault.
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