Dame St/ Lord Edward Street

The College Green plaza thread is suitable enough for general Dame St discussions, I might have thought.

Nearly a decade ago, Pat Liddy mentioned the planned Grand Civic Thoroughfare that would encompass Lord Edward St, Dame St, College Gn, Westmoreland St and O’Connell St. Nothing came of it.

“Nothing came of it” may as well be the slogan of the Celtic Tiger. We spend a decade’s worth of surplus on Skittles because we had no foresight. And Dublin isn’t astonishingly different today than it was back then. Just two redundant pedestrian bridges, two insuiffcient and unconnected light rail lines and a vast docklands quarter with no high-rise and no soul.

my limited view on things is that alot of the tax revenve came from the centre but was not spent on it???

just think of anything you might put below it first…

Insomnia sufferer here.

The idea of a grand civic thoroughfare, as mentioned above, starting from Christchurch/Lord Edward street up to and encompassing O’Connell street is the obvious course to take with the city centre, – my two cents.

Anyway, one thing that has always annoyed me about Dame street is that stretch of buildings which takes in the Olympia theatre. It has always felt out of place to me – the facades, the lack of uniformity in appearance and height. It just doesn’t fit in with the surrounding buildings. Oh well!:(

Could someone tell me how to properly quote someone else’s post, (i.e. in that little blue box), so that I can stop writing – ‘as mentioned above.’
Please excuse the forum virgin.

@kinsella wrote:

Could someone tell me how to properly quote someone else’s post, (i.e. in that little blue box), so that I can stop writing – ‘as mentioned above.’
Please excuse the forum virgin.

Just click the quote button in the right hand bottom corner of the post you want to quote from.

@fergalr wrote:

The College Green plaza thread is suitable enough for general Dame St discussions, I might have thought.

That’s true, but we could stretch this one up to deal with Christchurch, which has been getting off lightly.

mid 20th century aerial view of Christchurch, with the 19th century make-over of Skinners Row (as Christchurch Place) still largely intact, since replaced by Jury’s Inn and that sweeping ‘Peace Park’ corner to Nicholas St. / Patrick St.

Obvious targets here. This is all very pretty, but what other medieval cathedral (ouside England) feels the need to protect itself from it’s own city by a cordon sanitaire of railings, lawns and herbaceous borders, in fact, a little piece of Blighty! People will say that this is another ‘little oasis of calm’, but you only need an oasis of calm because the rest of the potential urban space is surrendered over to traffic turmoil.

As long ago as 1973 the AR identified the potential for making a proper urban space here, although I would question the need for grass and an eastern edge in front of the existing Fishamble St. / Werburg St. axis. I think Abercrombie had some diturbingly megalomaniacal plan for Christchurch, fifty years before that, but at least these were ‘urban’ proposals, now-a-days we’ll be lucky if we get some traffic management proposals and an adjustment to the railings to accommodate the construction of Luas line F.

Just looking at that old photo, but it is absolutely awful the way the whole area around Christchurch was razed to the ground.

@GregF wrote:

Just looking at that old photo, but it is absolutely awful the way the whole area around Christchurch was razed to the ground.

:(:(Indeed. Would any of our resident Dutch Billy aficionados care to comment upon the buildings on the left at the top of Fishamble street as you head down the hill. They look very interesting from what you can see in that photo.:(

Also what’s the structure in the middle of the junction of Castle st, Werburgh st and CChurch place? would be a pretty precarious spot for a public jacks but that’s what it resembles…

@tommyt wrote:

Also what’s the structure in the middle of the junction of Castle st, Werburgh st and CChurch place? would be a pretty precarious spot for a public jacks but that’s what it resembles…

I woudl have thought that was an ESB station or maybe a tram substation. Its looks similar to the derelict unit in the lower part of Smithfield

whats amazing about this picture is how much survived into the late 1980s when I moved to Dublin

the couple of building behind the hostel at the top of L.E St. on Fishamble Street, and most of the southern side of Christchurch Place were still there – largely derelict but still there. The southern side of Christchurch Place had a few corporation offices in some of the buildings.

I will always regret I didn’t have a camera then.

@tommyt wrote:

Would any of our resident Dutch Billy aficionados care to comment upon the buildings on the left at the top of Fishamble street as you head down the hill. They look very interesting from what you can see in that photo.

This is how easy it is to go off-topic!

I lifted that photograph from Douglas Bennet’s ‘Encyclopaedia of Dublin’ (1994) and I’ve given those particular houses the full magnifying glass treatment.

This is a pic of the front elevation of the same houses, posted recently on another thread, which I can’t now find (it was one of those negative ones where we all bitched about the state of the place . . . . just to narrow it down)

Much as I’d like to call these houses up as ‘Billys’, the similarities in window proportions, roof profile and central chunky chimney stack, with this surviving Middle Abbey Street pair, (which almost certainly weren’t ‘Billys’) probably suggests that we’re looking at another example of the transitional house type that emerged in the years after the first standard ‘Georgian’ houses of the Gardiner estates appeared.

@gunter wrote:

This is a pic of the front elevation of the same houses, posted recently on another thread, which I can’t now find (it was one of those negative ones where we all bitched about the state of the place . . . . just to narrow it down)

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?p=86857

Wouldn’t want anyone losing sleep over it. 😉

@donalbarry7 wrote:

Maybe it’s of little or no interest, but I was wondering what people’s views may be on the current state/ future of Dame St and Lord Edward Street??
The stretch is essentially the centre of Dublin, despite O’Connell St’s claim to the title. It’s directly linked to all the important sights/districts of Dublin! College green, City Hall, Dublin Castle, Christchurch, Patrick’s Cathedral Temple Bar area, Grafton street area and the O’Connel street area are all either on, or are immediately adjacent to the thoroughfare.
Yet, despite its location at the nucleus of Dublin it seems very neglected ,and rather than connecting all these important districts/sights to each other and to the city itself, it acts as a barrier.
Persoanlly, I think the street should be/deserves to be given a rejuvenation/status akin to that of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh or Karl Johannes Gata in Oslo connecting north and south, east and west and all the important historic sights which straddle it.
I’m an advocate for the pedestrianisation of College Green and perhaps limiting traffic on the rest of the street to two lanes running in a one way direction from east to west giving possibilities for widening the foothpaths to give greater footfall ( I also think any traffic on the street should be restricted to public transport.) Naturally, the buildngs/shop fronts would have to be given a serious scrub up.
Anyone else have any views on the topic or any info on proposals for the future?

The official govt policy:

(If plans are to be believed) Dame St/Edward St/Thomas St will be the route for the Luas to Lucan project, terminating at College Green. On top of this, a second Luas line (the Red/Green link) will traverse College Green north-south, thus creating a major tram node at the gates of Trinity.

There’s a huge IF attached to both these projects but their impact on the area would be huge, in one way or another. Personally, I’d see it as an improvement for Dame St to be a tramway, instead of a trunk road.

If they axed that stupid metro it could go ahead.

Depressingly, the AR said in that same 1974 study mentioned:

“… A more immediate threat, since the work has actually commenced, is the intention to increase traffic flow through the historic Christ Church Cathedral area when the whole armosphere of this historic place clearly suggests that it should be made less accesible to traffic and renovated as a conservation area.”

Tommyt is asking about the triple high pitched roof at top west of Fishamble St., not Winetavern St. Afaik it was a single building, a deanery or something associated w / Christchurch.

Sorry,

Got my Fishambles and my Winetaverns mixed up!

@tommyt wrote:

Also what’s the structure in the middle of the junction of Castle st, Werburgh st and CChurch place? would be a pretty precarious spot for a public jacks but that’s what it resembles…

It’ll be one of those police / guard stations that were and are still dotted around the city, particularly around old market sites. There’s one on Newmarket, another at Smithfield, and another on Parkgate Street beside the King’s Bridge (or Sean Heuston bridge, depending on your leanings).

Before the foundation of municipal police, parishes organised their own service, and the guards were based in little mini houses like these. In later years they sometimes became fire stations, and subsequently ESB sub-stations. Few survive and they are an important and interesting historical detail.

1832 – Elevation of Houses to be erected on Dame Street (northside) between Crow and Fownes Streets