Reply To: Smithfield, Dublin

Just plodding through there this morning and saw that the locals had ‘Smithfield Market Community say NO to High Rise’ notices in their windows. Here we go again. How is it that greater architectural issues can now be dictated by people who stick multicoloured crazy paving on the front of their homes, install garish PVC mock Georgian windows, erect these things called ‘Porches’ on the front of their doorstep and usually have a front garden that constitutes weeds or blanket tarmacadam and all en mass. Now come on we all know the auld story of ah! but they’re the true Dubs, the working class…. and all that, but plainly speaking the notion of ‘Taste’ is seriously lacking.It made sound snobbish I know, and not too PC, but there is an element of truth there. It was blinkered ignorant viewpoints that got inner city Dublin into such an impoverished mess years ago. Let’s reverse that please and make ‘Civics’ a serious part of our education today, so that architectural issues can be validly argued about by everyone, and not the usual scenario of the aimless flock been led by the lost shepherd. This is after all the information age, there are libraries their for everyone. Also, I wonder are the corpo houses there to get a make-over as they look a bit of an eyesore; the ‘scorched earth’ brick is too dark, looks awful and looks cheap, typical of Dublin Corporation inner city housing of one time…. but God bless ’em, sure was’nt that all they could muster under the guidence of Frank Feeley.