Re: Re: Irish say no to PVC windows

Meanwhile, the PVC machine ploughs on:

Athy 1.
The PVC-ing of the nearest building in this picture and part of the second one seems to have tipped the balance against authenticity in this group of three former shop-houses on Offaly Street, a side-street which leads eastwards out of Athy.

You can see the scene here about 30 years ago, with the shops open – maybe one was a creamery … and another a sweetshop … the town going about its business.
The traffic on this street now is unbearable – you walk quickly along it. Most of the cars are no doubt going to and from one-off houses – of which the Kildare countryside is covered in – while the streets of the town itself are almost dead as a living area. Same old story everywhere in Ireland today I suppose.

Athy 2.
We really know how to treat our vernacular buildings, don’t we? Offaly Street also (it can be seen in the distance in the previous pics).

Athy 3.
Sooner or later, every innocent little building cops it!

Church Gardens, Rathmines.
I lived in the area when I was a student in the ’90s and this pre-war house was always kept nicely with original steel windows while all the others on the street had been changed. It was something of a landmark at the top of the street with the streetname attached. I never thought this would happen …

Leixlip. And there’s now a massive superpub spawling behind this building.