Heads up – Cities of the Underworld

What an odd blurb for that programme. Apparently, all of Dublin was a pile of rubble from the 1916 rising and “Anglo-Irish War” until 1997.

@AndrewP wrote:

What an odd blurb for that programme. Apparently, all of Dublin was a pile of rubble from the 1916 rising and “Anglo-Irish War” until 1997.

Well it praises the British-era Georgian architecture..
We have nothing but pubs above and Viking burial grounds below.

Meh – the bit about the Poddle was alright (but I don’t think they actually walked 2 miles underground from ship street gate to it’s exit to the liffey as claimed!!!!) and they took a bit of liberty including Dowth and the Dunmore Caves as part of Dublin.

The highlight for me was the basement vaults of the South Dublin Union which are still extant beneath one of the new buildings in St James’ Hospital and the bit about St Michan’s was allright (except they pronounced it saint mike-ans – considering they had Pat Liddy in it they could have asked how to pronounce it!).

@Rory W wrote:

The highlight for me was the basement vaults of the South Dublin Union which are still extant beneath one of the new buildings in St James’ Hospital

Agree with you there Rory. However the archaeologist, Linzi Simpson, (I think), presented the vaults as something of a surprise, and their subsequent entombment under a concrete slab as a wonderful achievement.

I’ve brought this issue up before, on other threads, and this is classic example of what I was talking about. The archaeological community knew very well that the poor house of 1701 was there, they have all the maps, but instead of getting engaged early on in the design and development phase of the project, where their input could actually influence the form of the development, by providing their in-sight on potential hidden layers, they just hung back in academic isolation waiting for the call to get involved when construction is about to start.

If the archaeologists had got involved earlier, it might have been possible to develop the new buildings in ways that connected a bit more meaningfully with the basement remains and the layers of urban heritage on the site might now be, not just preserved, but also legible.