Contempt!!!!!!!

Originally posted by Graham Hickey
Oh come on, poor little paddys still suffering at the mercy of the Brits in Derry & Belfast? I ‘m obviously referring to our built surroundings. Can you imagine the physical state of our cities, towns & villages had the English not assumed control. Can you just imagine… Do you honestly think that the Irish would have been capable of building in their own unique style, or indeed built at all, sure we could’nt even do it in the 20th century!

very insulting tone there Graham, patronising too. I hate to have this as my first post on this site that i have been lurking on for a week or two but needs must.

I really think there was no need to go into the old ‘poor paddy’ routine, surely another way to express your feelings/ opinions.

Ireland has a lot to be proud of and to drag britain into it as you did, in such a petty competitive way says more about your attitude to the old oppressors than any other persons opinions of the east west conflict.

I am not an architecture student, nor and architect but someone with a love of good archtiecture and a great interest in the developing fortune of ireland and its appearance.

I feel this does not preclude me from giving an opinion on our state though and hope this will be respected here.

As another poster wrote, It is difficult to argue what Ireland would be like were it not for british involvement, but Im sure it would not
be impossible to put forward a good argument that Ireland would be better off without that part of its history. What would Japan be like were it not for Pearl Harbour? Would it have such an incredible state? Architecture?

It is foolish in the exteme to say that all Ireland’s problems would be solved now and the our skyline, street system other archtiecture related issues would be greatly improved if we were still under british rule.

I do not wish to turn this to a political debate, but feel that such childish, ignorant posts should not be on an intelligent forum that this often is.

CiaranO

I agree……………but maybe we should start building edifices that will distiguish us as unique from provincial British cities….that will reflect us Irish as a modernized civilized culture far away from the parochial gombeenism of the past.
There is a rich gamut of styles there to use as examples.

It may appear to ex-pats that Ireland and Dublin are getting better – it certainly looks better (litter apart), and is more socially diverse, secular, confident etc. On balance, it’s definitely a better place than it was, unless you were in a coma up to the mid-90s.
But there are a couple of glaring exceptions that threaten to negate everything else.

-Transport, public and private. Dublin is in danger of ceasing to function as a working city. It actually ceased to function a month or so ago when a few extra inches of rain fell.

-Housing. Professional couples on good wages are forced to live like trappist monks to afford massive mortgages for either a kennel-sized city flat or some bland semi-D in Naas or Balbriggan. If you’re single, forget it, you’re renting for life. And there are no rent controls.

Regarding the initial posting complaining of lack of metro service and sufficient infrastructure etc. Why do visitors always presume that Dublin should have these systems already in place?

There is an expectation by european visitors that metros and an efficient infrastructure are standard features in cities across the globe.
This, of course, is nonsense. Dublin is not built for the population explosion of recent years, and its infrastructural shortcomings are a result of poor planning procedures implemented by british planners in the 18th/19th centuries.
It is home-spun hokem to suggest that urban planning would have suffered in Dublin had it not been for British rule. It is stereo-typing of the most ignorant nature, and such typical right-wing rants are not suitable on an architecture website.

The dilemma is that prosperity has brought about a demand for services that were never required throughout the majority of the 20th century. Anyway, like it or lump it. Besides, the author of the initial complaint should count himself lucky to be in Ireland at all, because were it not for the recent economic boom he most definitely would never have visited Ireland. Now that he has – all he can do is complain. To you sir I brandish a red card!

Pundit, I think you’ll find that if you read back over the various plans proposed for Dublin from the late 19th century through the early 20th century and up to 1960s, many of them did call for Metro systems and advanced traffic management schemes.
I recommend a quick perusal of Ruth McManus’s recent Dublin 1910-1940: Shaping The City & Suburbs to see just how often developments to the tram system that existed and even the possibility of an underground network were suggested.
British planners were of course in charge in 17/1800s but not during 1900s when almost all mass transportation networks were actually built. Britain can not be blamed for our present traffic problems because the planning decisions they made related to an era pre-automobile.

I think the reason why Dublin may not be that distinguishable from most British (or many European) cities – is that it is the same size as those cities because Ireland (& capital), as a nation, is tiny compared to most other European countries e.g. Britain, Germany, France, The Netherlands etc.
On a historical note – you’ll find that many colonial powers would have considered their ‘dominions’ to be ‘incapble of self-governance’ – that is part of the standard colonial dialogue.

Urban planning – well, we tried some ‘new towns’ (e.g. Tallagh) although unlike our European neighbours like the Netherlands & UK, we made half-arsed attempts at it i.e. we cleared the ‘slum’ areas of the inner city & settled their populations into vast areas of low-density housing expecting personal cars to be the preffered & logical method of transport (cul-de-sac patterns of streets mitigated against good public bus access & pedestrian flows for catchment areas).
No attempt it seems was made to establish new town centres and industries etc. or, introducing mixes of various socio-economic groups.

Public transport – i personally get annoyed when politicians complain about having to spend money on ‘subvention’ of rail and bus services – i view said as.. Public Services.. and, as such, should not have ‘operating at a loss’ as a major consideration – i.e. how often and when, are stretches of roads and sewer lines expected to ‘turn a profit’???
Public transport, like above mentioned examples, are part of the national infrastructure that help keep the engine of the economy running – the direct & indirect benefits are not always immediately tangible e.g. people travelling on trains are not travelling in cars contributing to air & noise pollution, traffic accidents etc. etc but those benfits are not apparent in simply Irish Rail ticket returns. Other Euopean countries spend a lot more on their ‘subvetions’ than we do.
I do not think Ireland can afford to become as -lets say Socialist leaning as other countries howerver, i think that we’re sliding too close to the more British/ Amerian like profit-driven & car dominated society – I think Ireland can even less afford that particular approach e.g. rail services, though vital, are less likely due to population characteristics, to make a viable profit in privatisation – i.e. maintain as a national (infrastructure) service. Railfreight maybe an exception.