Dublin tea rooms launched for second time by another Lord Mayor
The long-awaited tea rooms in south Dublin’s Palmerston Park, have been launched for the second time by another Lord Mayor, Ray McAdam.
Mr McAdam said yesterday he was “absolutely thrilled” to open the Copper + Straw café, a project that has been floated for decades.
"This is an essential element of the community on this side of the city, and I think Copper + Straw are a wonderful addition,” he said.
“For me, this is about more than simply opening a café, it is about celebrating Dublin, because when we speak about celebrating Dublin, we are speaking about moments like this,” he told a gathered crowd of locals, staff and fellow councillors.
“Palmerston Park has long been one of Dublin’s quiet treasures … what we see today is a thoughtful transformation of what was once an underused space, into something that is warm, welcoming and full of possibility.”
The tea rooms project, funded by Dublin City Council, turned a former parks depot building into an understated café, but has come under criticism for going 25pc over budget and taking years to get off the ground.
In all, the bill came in at €683,000 due to unforeseen works on the building and its foundations.
Green Party councillor and former Lord Mayor Hazel Chu was also in attendance, and said the opening was “amazing” but overdue.
"A lot of people look at this, and think: 'Oh wow, this coffee shop just appeared in the middle of Palmerston Park', but it’s been years of the parks [department] working on it, years of residents working on it, and councillors working on it,” she said.
"I know my predecessors have been working on this even before I came on the council [in 2019], so it’s amazing to see this.”
Particularly crucial to Ms Chu are the new tearoom’s toilets, which are accessible and open to the public.
"For anyone, and it’s not just parents, wanting to go to the park, your fear is, well, what if I need to find a toilet? Having a toilet here is essential. And it seems like such a small thing, but it’s not. It’s a very basic human right that people should have,” she said.
The park’s tea rooms were previously ‘opened’ by former Lord Mayor, James Geoghegan, in a social media video posted eight days before the 2024 general election.
Mr Geoghegan, now a Fine Gael TD, said in the post that he had walked around the building and found it “so exciting to see it opened here today”.
"Great moment today seeing the opening of the brand new tea rooms in Palmerston Park. Delighted to see them opened,” the caption from November 21, 2024 reads.
However, the café only began serving customers more than a year later in December 2025.
Mr McAdam is also a candidate in next month’s Dublin Central by-election, along with the Deputy Lord Mayor John Stephens (Fianna Fáil), the Green Party’s Janet Horner, Sinn Féin councillor Janice Boylan and Social Democrats councillor Daniel Ennis, among others.