Irish Building of the Millenium

[MG]

What would it be?

[john white]

Do you you mean
"Which one in existance is it?"

OR

"What would it be like?"

Not like that Scott Tallon Walker heap under construction in DunLaoghaire I hope.

I can't think of anything more likely than Busarus to be honest at the risk of being monotonous.

John

[RoryW]

Yep, Id have to agree with John on Busaras, but sice its the building of the millenium maybe the Customs House, or Trim Castle (my god its outside the city). Although I do find the South City markets in Georges Street fascinating. The rock of Cashel anyone?

Rory W

[TG]

I think you would definitely have to consider some of the great country houses:

Summerhill Co Meath [demolished]

Castletown Co Kildare

Carton Co Kildare

Or out of left field for its contribution to a modern irish state:

Ardnacrusha

[McQuillan, James]

Since this celebration is for TWO Millennia, why not consider

- the best blg. of the First Mill.,

- the best blg. of the Second Mill.,

and if anyone is up for it, the best outright winner!

For the First Mil., - one of the great cashels or stone forts,

For the Second, surely a Romanesque or Gothic ensemble, as only there is embodied a coherent and authentic sculptural and/or painting programme that all great architecture encompasses (there is no Baroque in Ireland).

James McQuillan,
Prof. of Arch., Archt., etc.

[MG]

How about an actual streetscape?

Merrion Square?

Or that little village in Cork with the Georgian square - I cannot remember the name of it.

Actually when you think about it, an important factor is the hardship that the people went through to produce the building in question. This would of course bring in the large Catholic cathedrals built in the 19th century when the country was ravaged by famine and emigration. - Cobh, Killarney, Monaghan, Armagh.

From that point of view, this would rule out Georgian Dublin and the big houses but could also include Ardnacrusha [I like the idea of the building being selected for what it meant to the country]

[Jas]

How about a genre?

The small venacular cottages of the west of Ireland!

[James McQuillan]

Following on from my submissions of last month, there has been no challenge at all to my suggestions.

So I propose that the building of the First Millennnium be the cashel of Dun Aengus, Inishowen, Co. Donegal. This is a unique structure in the history of European settlement, and if you haven't visited it, then you are hardly in a position to comment!

I might accept the Rock of Cashel, an 'acropolis' of the second millennium, and therefore a worthy successor of the cashel of earlier times. However the Dun Aengus fort is emblematic of the antiquity of our culture in Ireland, and is in good and reasonably complete condition.

The other proposals are not that unique, as the street is found everywhere in the world, and power-stations are off-limits to most people. We must select something that is uniquely representative of our identity, and the cashel fulfills that admirably!

Any supporters out there!

James McQuillan

[MG]

I think the Rock of Cashel shouldnt be the choice for this millenium. I think it's way to easy to get caught up in the theory of the "Acropolis" as perfectio.

[James McQuillan]

Hardly 'perfectio', a word I never used, but an architectural entity that has the consumate meaning for our culture, in all its depth and complexity, something that all other candidates are somewhat lacking, in varying degrees.

Why is it that most modern commentators on Irish architecture seem incapable of thinking about anything before the eighteenth century. It is our earlier architecture that is truly unique and representative, while Ireland did not share in the Renaissance, and consequently most of what followed was highly derivative, and certainly feeble stuff.

I am looking for the 'unique' in form and place, not weak copies of commonplaces done better abroad.

James McQuillan

[John Stephenson]

Then you'd have to consider the early Christian settlement on the Skelligs as a serious contender.

[James McQuillan]

No I wouldn't. These stone houses or cells were used all over the country and are small, ill-lit accomodation of a most rudimentary sort - probably providing the exemplar for the later stone-roofed churches around the 10-12th. cents. Such cells have disappeared on the mainland - see their ruins devotionally preserved on Lough Derg, for example.

While Irish people seem to talk a lot about the past, few seem to understand it, as this discussion amply proves, eh -Editor?