Re: Re: Bricklayers Guild Hall

All of the above, I think is the only conclusion we can draw. . . . What’s the story with the Phoenix Park Wall?

Yerra, I heard it on the Sunday morning Miscellany programme years ago.

Apparently, a gombeen builder by the name of William Dodson got the contract to wall in the newly designated park grounds.
He also got the task of building the Anna Livia Bridge at Chapelizod.
Anyhow, the bould Bill subcontracted the bulk of the wall to numerous less well-connected masons at a fraction of the per length rate that he’d agreed for himself.
Result, the wall falls down at many points and a Commission of Inquiry is held into the whole thing.
Curiously, the work done on the Anna Livia seems to have been well approved by the Commission. When the new cantilevered walkways were added in recent years, they found they could build walkway supporting piers on the foundations of the breakwaters up- and down-stream of the arches.
A sort of 17th century instance of cross-subsidising the more interesting part of the public project by skimping on the routine part.