How well do you know Dublin?
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Yay! Well done aj – twas rather obscure.
Presumably it’s left over from whatever once stood on the site of the DIT extension. But it’s a very odd size – not being quite two storeys in height, but well above one. Strange…
Just left as a lonely straggling remnant 🙁
Goodness knows clerical outfitters are equally rare in the city today…
The archway picture is neither of the above suggestions, though is not a million miles away from one of them…
The number 3 picture is Newcomen Bridge on the North Strand – site of one of the proposed JC Decaux excresences.
Very slyly taken from the lock-keeper’s cottage side, which threw me.
@newgrange wrote:
The number 3 picture is Newcomen Bridge on the North Strand – site of one of the proposed JC Decaux excresences.
Very slyly taken from the lock-keeper’s cottage side, which threw me.
Spot on Newgrange – and yes, it was a somewhat obscure/ sly angle 🙂
That said it’s such an unusual ediface, it’s of merit… the only thing is, I cant find out anything about in any of the usual sources – can anybody throw any further light on it?
Who would have thought that the unassuming Newcomen Bridge could hide such features?
…And to think this is where DCC want to erect more billboards*? Fuck off with such shite 😡
* – there’s already a large electric scrolling billboard here which DCC recently permitted 😮
@GrahamH wrote:
Yay! Well done aj – twas rather obscure.
Presumably it’s left over from whatever once stood on the site of the DIT extension. But it’s a very odd size – not being quite two storeys in height, but well above one. Strange…
Re this piece, I suspect it may have been an element of the structures that were bombed/ burnt during the ’22 -’23 post-Treaty conflict (east side of upper end of O’ Connell St having being seized by de Brugha, before the Free Staters ousted them).
@GrahamH wrote:
Here’s another quick one. I will be very impressed with anyone who gets this – you need to be a snooper of the highest order to know where it is. Then again, it’s in such a surprisingly frequented place that you may just have stumbled upon it one day, should curiousity have gotten the better of you – as in this case.
It’s not in a graveyard or obscure city park…
I think this is in Trinity College. Behind the Chapel (East Chapel).
Dublin has a wonderful selection of different heads. Some such as those on the O’Donovan Rossa and other bridges spanning the Liffey are well-known, and were previously featured on the old Irish bank notes. Others are also celebrated – with Smyth’s Riverine heads having provided the inspiration for many’s a cheap tourist souvenir.
However there are others also – dotted around the city and frequently appearing in places where there least expected! A common or at least re-occurring trait is that these sculpted heads tend to be used primarily around and over doorways and arches – in many cases highlighting the pre-eminence of a primary access point. Another feature shared by many is that the type of head, surrounding costume and garb, has been used to actively illustrate the function of the building adorned – and in some cases even depicts the sorts working inside.
Perhaps this may yet justify a thread of it’s own, but I thought it would be an awful shame if we first didn’t have some fun with them 🙂 – hence I am uploading the following onto this thread first, and if in time there are more added by others or that it makes sense within it’s own terms, another thread can initiated. (If anybody can add more that would be super!). Anyhow the following are all in the city, between the two canals; see what you can identify – some are better documented than others. In all there are only 8 locations which have given rise to this, but over this and the following 3 posts over 30 heads are featured 😮
And just to add to the fun, all have been mixed up so as to be in a nonsensical order – amn’t I the helpful fellow 😀
In any event, if one looks closely it will soon become apparent that certain groups may belong to the same or similar location. When all have been identified, they can then be put in their logical sequence. Enjoy! 🙂Now to get you started, this one is “Gloriousâ€
1.
But would he have approved of this fellow?
2.
Well in case there be any dispute between the two, this fellow better be close by –
3.
And in reserve, his mate just in case… Ah I do approve of order!
4.
But spectators often gather at such ruckuses – and some are clearly more cheery…
5.
…than others!6.
Amongst the crowd, some may grimace and make faces – this fellow’s breath probably smells a bit, something he’s possibly not too happy about
7.
Perhaps this fellow has to smell that chaps breath – and neither are happy at being called “fish-face”!
8.
Meanwhile a further man of uniform might arrive, seeing as there’s now a crowd gathering –
9.
Would you buy a car off this fellow – I wouldn’t even dare ask him the time!
10.
He might, if annoyed, know some dodgy types – and hutton prefers not to be abducted into the white slave trade…
11.
In any case there are witnesses –
12.
But does anyone recognize this fellow? It would seem that some may be happier to be here…
13.
…than others, who may be tiring in the mid-day sun
14.
Females, it would appear, are just as happy to be here
15.
16.
17.
as are their male counterparts –
18.
19.
Yet I will be particularly impressed if anyone knows this lassie –
20.
And clearly the genteel must gaze
21.
as well as the august
22.
One or two may comment on the affair –
23.
24.
Yet others are clearly saying nothin’ –
25.
Perhaps its because there are even more uniformed sorts about –
26.
as well as other pillars of society (or at least in this case, of a doorway!)
27.
and there’s always the possibility of a spy or an informer –
28.
as well as the more casual observers –
29.
30.
While the elder members might also take a glance –
31.
Yet all will have to face their makers – and so for the finale, a dramatic sequence of images carved by a hand that has since followed his own mortal depiction, RIP;
32a.
and adjacent to the skull, the sculptor also left another detail – the hour-glass over cross-bones, thus advising on the inevitable pursuant to the passage of time
32b.
and finally the two together shown in context:
32c.
Great collection there hutton. Definately deserves a thread of its own.
It’s easy to tell which ones are from ****** *****, but I won’t spoil it for the others 😉
Many thanks Morlan 🙂
You could well be right – probably move them after they’ve been guessed.. btw I’d love to add some others if there are any more about 🙂
@hutton wrote:
Many thanks Morlan 🙂
btw I’d love to add some others if there are any more about 🙂Righto, here’s few for the moment. They should be easy to get.
a/b/c
d
e
Well the uniform sorts are the “Keystone Kops” from Pease Street Garda Station and the Skull & Crossbones and hourglass are from St Werberg’s (always thought they were a bit morbid for a church especially when you are looking out at them from the queue from Burdocks!!) as for the non ******* ***** ones – a good question.
No 13 raises a smile though
It does indeed. Great pics hutton – all the aul favourites cropping up, incl Morlan 🙂
Although I cannot actually think where No. 13 is. Think I only recognise it from photographs.Well done Phil on Trinity: I suspected only you’d get that – as usual 😉
A virtually unknown tiny little commemorative – and indeed ash burial – plot to the rear of the chapel.
And with the most spectacular crown glass looking down on it!
Fantastic stuff.
GrahamH wrote:Well done Phil on Trinity: I suspected only you’d get that – as usual ]ha ha, thanks Graham. Lovely little mysterious part of College that.
Well no 13 seems to have everybody still guessing, charming rascal that he is 🙂
13.
Well done Rory on the uniformed sorts they are indeed Pearse St Garda Station’s “Keystone Copsâ€. Detailed on pages 453-4 in Christine Casey’s Pevsner Guide to Dublin; completed in 1915, the building was by A. Robinson, M.J. Burke & H.G. Leask of the OPW, and in style that is “minimal hard-edged Scots Baronial. Regarding the entrance Casey notes that “a triple-arched portal led to the constables’ entrance while a single arched porch at the w end was officially the officers’ entrance, a distinction amusingly signaled in carved label stops of inspectors and menâ€. They really are a charming detail so here they are again, beginning at the west end. It’s worth noting that while all may be in uniform, no two are the same
Rory was also right as to no 32 (a, b +c) being Thomas Burgh’s St Werburghs, which was built between 1715 – 19, making it one of the city’s earliest essays in the classical manner. Again this building is well documented by Casey on pages 342 – 4; partly rebuilt by Joseph Jarratt in 1759, “the committee appears to have desired a straight forward recreation of the original†which “it seems, is what they got…The plasterwork here was designed by Jarratt and executed by Michael McGuire and Thomas Tierney. Panels with human masks and foliate pendants fill the spaces between the columns.†Students of history will know that not only are the remains of Lord Edward Fitzgerald interned here, but also those too of his chief detractor, Major Sirr. The building is missing it’s steeple, which was removed probably to prevent it being used by a sniper – as it had overlooked the upper yard in Dublin Castle.
I think its fair to say that the cat is well out of the bag on the ones from the “******* *****†as Morlan and Rory both so discreetly put it. They are of course John Smyth’s famous Riverine heads, erected as part of the Custom House 1781 – 91. I was pleasantly surprised during the week when I asked at their front desk whether they had any information sheets on the building; happily I was presented with a 48 page glossy booklet by Eddie McParland, free-of-charge. Although the publication dates from 1991 when they had just completed restoration, it’s all obviously still as up to date and is highly recommended as it is easily readable while being very informative.
Lovely little gems are contained within such as how Henry Grattan was so offended by the “bombastic vanity†of the Customs House, which he said had resulted then (1790) in “a building of sixth rate rank in architecture…which stands as a blemish in the eye of the islandâ€.
Grattan wasn’t of course the only one; 9 years previously in September 1781 Napper Tandy and the High Sheriff “followed by a numerous rabble, with adzes, saws, shovels, & c., & c., came in a body on the ground, and leveled that portion of the fence…adjoining the North Wallâ€. Tandy’s and the merchants complaints were not of course on an aesthetic ground, but that by building the Custom House where it is would relocate the commercial heart of the city away from it’s then location roughly where the Clarence Hotel is today; a dodgy rezoning of it’s day as it were! So hats off there anyway to the Gardiners on the northside with the Pembroke estate on the south in outdoing Fianna Fail before there was Fianna Fail, and isn’t it appropriate that the building is today HQ of the Department of Environment! It is of course one of Dublin’s most iconic buildings, and as with The Sunlight Chambers 100 years later, what started out being one of the most hated buildings in the city is now one of it’s most loved.So here are the 14 Riverine Heads, each depicting an Irish river and also the Atlantic, all by John Smyth, who Gandon likened to Michelangelo. Beginning with the central arch on the south elevation (no 21), and notably the only female – Anna Livia, aka the Liffey (no. 21):
The Erne (no. 30):
No 1 is of course The Foyle – the giveaway being the date 1689 noting the Siege of Derry during “The Glorious Revolutionâ€, which ultimately resulted in the 18th century administration that Ireland had:
Moving clockwise to the west front, there is the Slaney (no. 31) followed by The Nore (no. 14):
Continuing clockwise to the north elevation, there is the Suir (no. 25):
Appropriately looking north, the Lagan (no. 24):
The Lee is over the central doorway (no.12):
Oddly enough, the Shannon (no. 28) is to the left of the centre:
The Bann (no. 23) is the final one on the north front, at the NE corner:
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