O’ Connell Street, Dublin

Hmmm – sounds like the proposed Royal Dublin Hotel revamp is in the bin so.

Yes – and even as late as 1978 they were still stained dark, dressed with classy 70s smoked nets 🙂

I think this property definitely looks better with dark frames. Also, I can’t find the appropriate picture, but even as recent as the late 1980s it’s very notable just how sparklingly bright and clean this corner building was. Either it was cleaned at the time, or the enormous increase in passing heavy goods vehicles in the intervening 20 years has sullied the facade substantially. Either way we can look forward to a bright new pin on the corner of the bridge by the end of February :). Here’s hoping the signage designation in the IAP will have the desired impact too.

A probably little-noted building on Lower O’Connell Street that is sorely in need of urgent works is No 8, next to the Bank of Ireland premises. It has a delightful facade with a sunken upper floor treatment unusual for this street.

The resulting void, albeit oddly proportioned, is filled with a lovely two-tier bow window with original stained glass intact, so typical of the early 20th century: this building completed around 1918.

As can be seen however, the bow is in an appalling condition, with most of the upper casements replaced with horrible white aluminium or early PVC, and the frames unpainted for so long they’re in danger of decay. Also as can be seen, the orginal stucco or timber swags have long-disappeared, their shadows left to tell the tale. What an ugly setting for the mellow granite framing it all.

The state of this property creates an appalling impression at the entrance to the street, and yet no enforcement proceedings have been initiated in spite of it being both a protected structure and sited in an ACA. No amount of public domain improvements are going to have the oft-touted ‘knock-on effect’ with a small property like this. Meanwhile, the original timber fabric is slowly rotting away up there, even though a local authority can step in at any point to protect the integrity of a PS.

Hee’s a (poor) wider view from a while ago.

And enough said about the ground floor…

The neighbouring property is interesting in having two-over-two sashes – almost an historicist approach taken by the architect, something that usually resulted in Georgian sashes rather than this type.
The building on this site prior to 1916 was the founding place of Conradh na Gaeilge in 1893 – they moved up to near the Savoy in the late 1890s.

As with all of O’Connell Street’s arches, the entrance to a cinema, lostexpectation.
Hope to have more on this building shortly – it’s had a chequered history.

Disappointing news about Irish Nationwide, Stephen. It was a prime opportunity…

They’ve also been positioned further apart than they used to be.

Of course the central question remains: what they heck are they?! Well as far as can be made out, they were simply part of a ‘suite’ of furniture introduced to the street roughly around the 1870s. Not only was this design used in protecting William Smith O’Brien at the entrance to D’Olier Street…

…but also used in the base of certain lamp standards in the centre of Sackville Street.

(image a bit squashed at the bottom above)

Our friends at the northern end appear to have been used simply as a protective feature around a three-arm lamp standard (as featured here before), long since disappeared, located in the vast untamed environment of Upper Sackville/Great Britain streets.

From what can be made out, this part of O’Connell Street has been used for generations as a taxi point, reaching back to the mid-19th century. The bollards and lamp would have been a safe point for patrons to wait after dark.

Perhaps the holes in two of the bollards were used as a convenient venting point of a gas/sewer main? Not that that quite explains the mysterious later trapdoor…

And for what it’s worth, once again those fantastic National Library photographs from 1969 🙂

Indeed you’d really have to question the proliferation of telephone facilites here, given the largest telephone room in the state is located on the same street! Surely a double provision at either end is more than enough. Yes it’s good to see the tress going back in

As for the bollards Morlan, no they weren’t moved with Smith O’Brien was because: 1) they’re not the same ones 🙂 (his ones were narrower), 2) they appear in 1870s photographs at the top end of the street which are contemporaneous to the erection of WSO’B, and 3) WSO’B was only moved to O’Connell Street in 1929, so quite late.

Just on the monuments of the street, there’s a new publication out hot off the presses from DCC’s Heritage Office all about the enormous conservation project conducted over the summer of 2005. The foresight for such a publication is most impressive, with many beautiful before and after photographs by Donnacha O’Dulaing and Jason Ellis. The text is highly detailed, focusing on the proceedures adopted for each monument, and really brings home how shockingly badly they were treated in the past. In one instance a stone conservator remembers working on O’Connell in the 1980s (presumably when the railings were also removed), where silica sand was blasted at the stonework of the monument at a pressure of 100 pounds per sq inch! Today glass powder is used at 20psi! It had also been coated in a layer of coppery-orange paint, followed by a layer of black paint!

But the real heros without question are the bronze conservators of Conserve Europe. Here’s some information about the project as seen from their perspective:

http://www.conserve-europe.org/exam_mon.html

‘From O’Connell to Parnell’ is in pamphlet-like format, and only costs a fiver in most bookshops. I suspect they’ll be snapped up fast.

Oh please – history-by-numbers in action. But thanks : )

Yes the ‘huddled’ layout was perhaps their most endearing quality originally: a shame it’s been lost. Particularly as these are the sole survivors of historic street furniture on the entire street. Indeed considering the GPO bollards and bridge lanterns are embellishments to wider architectural set-pieces, the four bollards are the sole remnant of street furniture on any of the city’s principal commerical streets around the Liffey, if not wider.

An elegant grey gloss paint was also used for the GPO bollards and former lamp bases in the recent works.

Irish Nationwide as mentioned was recently unveiled – a decidedly damp squib all round I think it’s fair to say.

Indeed parts of the facade, particularly the first floor, don’t look like they were cleaned at all. The windows do look smart however, in what was a very neat job.

Alas the ridiculous, tacky Nationwide green pediments have been retained.

They are elegant 1920s frames up close, with good carved detail including typical ribbon and flute carvings, and little ribbons on the pediments.

Also the crude ground floor fascia signage hasn’t been addressed.

While the new floods are rather intrusive and ugly.

And even on the ground floor, the charming brass plinths haven’t even been mended, though this could be happening later.

Why little of an improving nature was done to this property must stem from the fact that no official planning application seems to have been made – probably only consultations with DCC regarding like-for-like repainting and floodlighting. As such, DCC couldn’t impose any conditions such as removal of the notorious signage to the bridge or at ground floor level. A pity.