Irelands Ten Worst Roundabouts

Yeah – that’s a Tralee speciality. Most people just drive right over them!

(urban areas) Does it cost that much more to install lights at a junction that to dig up and redesign for a roundabout?

The only thing it has delivered was a quick buck to a few minor developers.

Yeah, great statement.

I am really looking forward to the Gilmartin phase of Mahon Tribunal

I dunno, I am actually surprised to hear that kind of sentiment expressed here on the board. I mean, if recent global events with earthquakes and relief work are anything to go by, I would say that Ireland is a country which leads the world in terms of providing personnel, money, supplies and logistics for all kinds of relief work globally.

But, the cost of relief work, after the damage has been done is huge. Now, what about spending a small amount of money making sure that suitable designs are implemented in areas of the world, where developers construct unsuitable urban building, in the path of tornados, earthquakes, flooding, tidal waves, erosion etc.

I mean, when it comes to spending anything before the disaster happens we as a nation are incredibly complacent. We all seem to love rushing out driving our aid jeeps, with our bachelors degree in medicine or economics solving all the world’s problems/disasters. It is like some massive disaster adventure holiday. A relief from the deary, hum-drum existence of living in Terenure or Clontarf. It is nice to know, we will return to that.

But telling stories about disaster relief, and our generousity to nations facing turmoil – that all sounds good. No one in Ireland, could be credited with providing engineering services for earthquake prone housing developments in some poor country, and supervising their execution with relevant authorities.

No, it is much more ‘Bruce Willis’ to run in with vans, and lorries with big crosses painted on them – yelling and making a fuss like an actor for ‘ER’, but ultimately doing very little real to stop the problems. A fitting platform for our ravishing movie star good looks, and huge opinion of ourselves.

The tribunals in this country are just another lavish and expensive ‘post mortem’ and excursion into ‘La-la’ land for a bunch of ‘concerned middle class anal-retentives’ IMHO.

All I am saying, is that these tribunals are very like a good old fashioned pub fight, but using degrees and legality instead of fists. But at the end of the day, all we achieve is to beat the suger out of one another, and tell the stories about it later.

It is not that, it the fact that no one seems to care what they cost, what they are achieving – that is, other than providing RTE and the Irish Times with something to report about. On the other hand, did anyone see the programme made by the BBC about house design last night? The one where all the house was built in a factory in Germany and shipped by road as far as England?

A ‘Huf’ house?

I think, if you put some EU funding towards the Germans to help solve some difficulties in poorer countries prone to disasters, you might get more results than a bunch of middle class ‘concerned’ Irish people pissing around in jeeps, looking for war stories to bring back to their old cronies. 🙂 Now, allow me to qualify something here, before I am completely misunderstood. I have heard it said, the Irish and the Mexicans make the best journalists/reporters in the world. That is a very useful function, in the context of disaster prone relief/prevention too.

I mean, the Asians, in the tech world are notorious for being tight-lipped about tech glitches etc – seen as weak to admit a problem you see. The Texans like Mikey Dell are over-achievers, the Germans are too proud to own up to difficulties etc and would prefer to go down with a sinking ship. But I think the Irish, tell it how it really is, regardless of who/what it might offend. So we are great in some areas – just not in others. The tribunals are probably done to the highest standards of fact-finding and reporting – for all I know.

But, you cannot solve every problem by using the gift of the gab. But I think there is a real role there alone, for the Irish in trying to sort ot the problems in poorer countries. If we are ever going to benefit from more stability and safety globally, we here in the relatively well to do, parts of western Europe and North America are going to have to learn to change some very deeply routed and fundamental attitudes, which have been lingering around far too long – since the days of missionaries etc, etc, etc.

It is the same with the refugee problem – all we want to do, is talk and talk and talk about the rascism, and accomodating more refugees etc. But no mention about what is happening in these countries to begin with – or putting our money and effort where our mouth is, and solving that.

The Germans on the BBC program last night were building construction super heros – I think they could cope with lots and lots of big problems.

I believe a lot of the techniques they use for building these houses, owe much to the tools and techniques used by stage designers to set up and move large props.

As to the factory end of it, as the reporter said – where are the page 3 pin ups from the Sun newspaper – if BMW were to build houses, that is how they would build them.

Gotham Gazette (love that name) mentions some of these ideas too:

City dwellers “listening to President George W. Bush’s 2004 State of the Union Address on primetime last week may have felt overlooked. The president never once uttered the words ‘urban’ or ‘city’ or ‘New York,’ though he did say ‘Bulgaria’ and ‘Bali.’.. Today, there is no real urban policy agenda in Washington… [rather] there is a history of deep anti-urban sentiment in America… Cities continue to be seen as places of poverty, corruption, crime, and immorality. And immigrants, who traditionally first settle in urban areas, have often been viewed with suspicion.”

A large part of our view of cities in all parts of the world, both rich and poor, has been coloured by the Bush administration I think. We need to get back to a solid urban ajenda and less of a ‘political one’. The NYC competition etc, maybe has been used to keep urban design politicised for longer than it should.

Today, there is no real urban policy agenda in Washington.

“There is no leader in the executive branch [for urban issues] and there are no committees in Congress that make it a priority,” said David Rapp, editor of Congressional Quarterly, a publication with 100 reporters covering Congress. “We don’t even have a reporter assigned to cover urban affairs.”

See my point about Irish people and reporting?

sorry i forgot what u said from laughing… and yea..very easy build..kinda like ikea…

Re Overseas development aid and Bruce Willis types I agree entirely having experience of Latin America and West Africa. They are like the mandarin classes of the Irish civil service 30 years ago.
Going around in their USAID or EU badged jeeps either gringos or natives ‘a station above their peers’.

The thing is, I never have been abroad in these situations, but I kind of know what to expect from Irish people in general, in the types of solutions they seem to use to every known kind of problem. I think the Italians and the Irish could get along well – like small Fiat cars – making a tremendous fuss and achieving very little. But then again – that country has given so much too, in terms of art, fashion, cooking, music – the Irish have given the world writers and poets/playwrights.

There is a good film about a prison camp in Scotland during WWII, where the germans were escaping to man subs, and they brought in some Irish man to sort them out – worth a watch – McKenzie’s way – or something – circa 1970s movie.

If we build rubbish, then we can argue about it, blame one another and use the issue as a political football for generations afterwards. To do something right needs mental strengths and great individual reserve – a strong national psyche, is something the Germans etc lean very heavily upon as a nation – they have had to all down through history. It is something we don’t do at all.

I think an artist you should look at is Joseph Bueys, who was very interested in countries on the edges – places like Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal etc. The appear to share some very common characteristics, despite being geographically in totally different places. As opposed to the more inland parts of Europe, which developed in a different way.