Aren’t the Irish Independent Property Supplement a disgrace?

That particular scheme is particularly bad, if you look at 5 design types only two of them could even be considered pastiche the other three are very poor attempts at period replication. What makes a Country House is its setting; they need to be viewed from a distance across a parkland setting.

Thanks for posting the link Phil it really has opened a can of worms

DublinLimerick you cannot change the title of a thread after noticing an error. If you want to see some real grammatical blunders, visit Phil’s link above…

It also features ‘The Moorings’:

Thank goodness the picture’s that small. Despite what has been said about the ‘luxury’ estate above, I don’t think I’d go for the high density option either…

“The Moorings are a block of luxury apartments / duplex units overlooking the River Liffey designed with the emphasis on space and full use of the panoramic views of the surrounding countryside.”

Yes views from the building, clearly not of it.

I’d agree about the Indo’s coverage of this type of development, and this type of architecture. I don’t want to name names of journalists, but I find coverage of ‘real’ Georgian equally fawning in the Independent’s pages, not least by a person previously mentioned here – with the most fruity of vocabulary applied to the most standard of Georgian and Victorian housing. They also constantly call Victorian housing Georgian.

But the fact that the same voluptuous language used to describe these ‘modern’ developments is applied in equal measure to the most stunning or architecturally significant of period properties makes so much of their supplement all the more preposterous.

The property sections of all the papers are the same. They don’t, however, purport to be anything but estate agents’ hardcopy. They aren’t “architectural” supplements although they do sometimes try to bring some innovative houses to our attention. The point is that newspapers make a lot of cold cash out of these supplements – they are, don’t forget, 20 pages of adverts. Newspapers, therefore, are not about to bite the hands that feed them. They only print what the Planning authorities allow to be built.

@Lotts wrote:

Shame on Damien Hughes.
That sure is one badly proportioned door.
Could be the very example of curved PVC that you were looking for though Graham

this is a mid 18C house near where I live. They were neeearly right

FYI – Also from the estate agents website:

“Killenard’s elevated location gives panoramic views over the Kildare Plains to the North and the Wicklow Mountains to the East. It is located in luscious and scenic countryside.The old road running through the village is one of the five ancient roads of Ireland known as the “Sli Dala” (way of the tribes) dating back to Pre-Christian times.

To the North of Killenard, the ruins of Lea Castle at the Barrow River are still visible and it was built in the 3rd Century being one of the more important Castles in Leinster at the time. Also beside the village is Carrig Hill where the first Earl of Portarlington erected a spire in the 1780’s and set the hill aside for the hunting and leisure activities of the local gentry.

In keeping with the area’s ancient history, the developer’s have taken the name of this development i.e. Carriglea from the above mentioned Lea Castle and Carrig Hill combining the two words into “Carriglea”. On the edge of the village is the imposing Mount Henry (Mount St. Anne’s) built by the local Landlord’s the Skeffington-Smiths in 1820.

The entire region is steeped in fascinating history ranging from the ancient and once magnificent Fort at the Rock of Dunamaise (towards Portlaoise) dating from before 1200 listing Strongbow and the Sons of the King of Leinster as its occupants and probably dates back to pre – Celtic days. The nearby Emo Court residence dates back to 1790 and is a splendid architectural masterpiece designed by James Gandon (who designed the Customs House & Four Courts in Dublin). Now Emo Court is owned by the state with wonderful public walks on the adjoining grounds and woods which can be enjoyed by owners in Carriglea. A wonderful facility at your doorstep. “

Whatever you think about these houses and I have seen much more lavish old style houses there is a definite market for this type of house if there was no market no one would be building them. Personally I wouldn’t pay 600,000 euro plus for anything less than a shopping centre in Laois it is just too far from Dublin and traffic gets worse every year. What they don’t tell you in the ad is that Newlands Cross is worse than its ever been and please don’t get me started on the mad cow.

@finlay wrote:

Sunday Indo even worse, very much driven by advertising ‘cheerleading’, editor strangely tries to infuse the selling pitch with details of his personal life, a la A A Gill or Clarkson but fails miserably. The danger of this misleading hyperbole is it creates a market among the readership, which, apparently is the hightest Sunday readership.

Could not agree more with Finlay about the appaling Sindo supplement. Its even trashier than its weekday counterpart, showing a crass ignorance of all architecutal and heritage issues combined with supercilious schoolboy writing that is meant to pass as wit. If this is the largest circulation Sunday, god help Ireland.

@Devin wrote:

More from I. I. property supplement on Friday:

I cannot quite figure it out, but there seems to be a striking resemblance between these houses and the ones being referred to in this link:

http://www.pleanala.ie/REP/129/R129196.DOC

Either way, the description of the Bord Pleanala inspector is quite telling:

“The initial report of the Planner clearly identified the principal planning issues associated with the proposed development. This site is in a remote, unserviced rural area. The layout and form of this development is suburban and the development appears purely speculative. It is wholly inappropriate to be developing such suburban type development in this rural area. Such development would constitute undesirable ribbon development, would undermine the rural amenities of this area and would lead to demands for public services and community facilities. Such development is more appropriate to existing settlements in the area, such as the nearby village of Ballintubber.”

Hey ctesiphon, Did you hand that tall buildings essay in yet. No, because you’ve spent the last week on this bloody discussion forum. Do some work for god’s sake.