Bricklayers Guild Hall

So, are you :

A. Demonstrating that the instinct towards grasping gombeenry is inherently stronger in brickies’ union officials than their love of good workmanship .

B. Implicitly complimenting the Bricklayers Guild on its acumen, while conveying to us a template for profitable purchase engagements with the Corpo in similar situations .

C. Impugning the professional ethics of lawyers for both the Guild and the Corpo who may have been complicit in agreeing a settlement far in excess of the true compensation on the basis of a visibly humbug claim .

D. Asserting a basis for successful post facto litigation against the Guild in view of its failure to fulfil the intentions implied in its compensation deal with the Corpo .

E. Bewailing yet another past transgression of an Irish local authority in relation to property sale or purchase .

If E. is the correct answer, then why not discuss instead the much more entertaining story of the Phoenix Park Wall contract ? :thumbup:

@teak wrote:

So, are you :

A. Demonstrating that the instinct towards grasping gombeenry is inherently stronger in brickies’ union officials than their love of good workmanship .

B. Implicitly complimenting the Bricklayers Guild on its acumen, while conveying to us a template for profitable purchase engagements with the Corpo in similar situations .

C. Impugning the professional ethics of lawyers for both the Guild and the Corpo who may have been complicit in agreeing a settlement far in excess of the true compensation on the basis of a visibly humbug claim .

D. Asserting a basis for successful post facto litigation against the Guild in view of its failure to fulfil the intentions implied in its compensation deal with the Corpo .

E. Bewailing yet another past transgression of an Irish local authority in relation to property sale or purchase .

If E. is the correct answer, then why not discuss instead the much more entertaining story of the Phoenix Park Wall contract ? :thumbup:

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

I don’t suppose anybody knows where the granite from the facade of the Brick and Stone Layer’s Hall might have ended up, or is that like looking for the fees you paid a solicitor thirty years ago.

With the benefit of hindsight, there may have been clues to an inclination within the Brick and Stone Layers Guild towards grasping gombeenery long before the 1980s. At some point late in the nineteenth century, the venerable guild appear to have purchased the crisply detailed ‘Billy’ next door at no. 50 Cuffe Street and summarily demolished it just to give themselves another six foot of building width and a second door.

this image was lifted from McCullough’s: Dublin, an Urban History.

Paul’s image of the expanded Hall [from the Cuffe Street thread] shortly before demolition

an aerial view from about the same time showing the devastation to the streetscape caused by all the Corporation setbacks, with the Hall [and its extension] still hanging in there, just

a grainy view of the expanded Brick and Stone Layer’s Hall with nos. 47 and 48 Cuffe Street then still standing. No. 47 displaying the entrance door and window disposition of a [twin] Billy . . . . to those of us who believe in such things

Apparently Meredith’s Pawn Shop, at no. 48, was a legendary establishment in the Dublin of the 1940s and 50s and held a special place in peoples’ affections as the only pawn shop in the city that would take false teeth.

aagh, the good old days

Interesting thread here….especially the Raider of the Lost Ark store house. Turns out Dublin Civic Trust have the artefacts from the Irish House Pub, while much of the interior was kept by the pub’s owners. There appears to be a storage yard in Cherrywood that holds many items f interest from around the city. DCC must have a yard…eg where have they stored the 3 Fates statues that used to sit in the small park beside City Hall.

The Dodson case is notorious alright – quite the Priory Hall of its day, though even then still likely to be more fireproof.

I hadn’t seen the extended version of the Bricklayer’s Hall before – you couldn’t make this stuff up.

At least it’s somewhat comforting that standards started to slip a long time before now. A once marvellously stocial, austere mausoleum-like facade confidently slotted into the streetscape, completely butchered by a cack-handed, lop-sided add-on by Bob the Builder’s great-grandfather. The new rustication running straight into the original serene ashlar of the upper floor is bad enough, but to course it as randomly as ashlar just takes the biscuit. And what was the original cornice not getting right to warrant such a clunky deviation? As for the mini-Wyatt window alongside the original – talk about asking for a visual fisty-cuffs, never mind the random toothy gawk of a cornice tacked above as icing on the cake. Who are these guys, and where can I subcribe to their newsletter? The poor aul balustrade got a whack too. Probably recycled for the new decking out the back.

The original building is very much in the style of Frederick Darley, though the balustrade is a bit much for his chaste manner. Architect Isaac Farrell is another name of this era that springs to mind. I imagine it was originally built with a large, square top-lit hall on the first floor, before the building was extended later in the nineteenth century with a new access door to the side and a long narrow passage leading down to a vast new hall added on the back as suggested by the aerial view.

Ah I think you have it. I was looking at it only at the weekend but couldn’t place the fecker. The tripartite window above the pictured doorcase shares a similar relationship on Bricklayer’s Hall. Likewise with the cornice and frieze at parapet level.