A crane-house, as the name suggests, was a riverside structure housing the apparatus used to load and unload vessels, and at some point around 1573 this one acquired a second role when a customhouse was opened on its upper floor, bringing the collection of duties and the movement of goods under the same roof. It is not a combination that survived for long.

The building's end came violently in 1597, when a gunpowder explosion destroyed it. The explosion is noted by the historian Clarke, writing in 2002, though the precise location of the structure on the south city quays has not been established with any certainty. What can be said is that the late sixteenth century was a period of considerable activity along Dublin's waterfront, as the city's role as a colonial administrative and commercial centre was expanding rapidly, and the management of customs, that is the taxing of imported and exported goods, was a matter of serious Crown interest. Housing the customhouse within an existing working structure like a crane-house speaks to the pragmatic, often improvised character of civic infrastructure in this period, before purpose-built institutions became the norm.

Because the site has not been precisely located, there is no specific spot to visit or mark on a map. Anyone interested in the broader context of early modern Dublin's quaysides might find it worth walking the south bank of the Liffey between the old city core and what is now the docklands area, bearing in mind that the riverbank itself has changed considerably over the centuries through land reclamation. The general vicinity would have been active, noisy, and industrial in character, a place of ropes, barrels, and ledgers rather than anything resembling the present streetscape. The explosion of 1597 left no ruins to inspect, and the precise location may never be recovered without further archival or archaeological work.