O’ Connell Street, Dublin

I thought rather than just slapping up an image of Sackville Mall, I’d make up a little picture compilation of how the buildings have ‘developed through the centuries’ – as an estate agent would say.

So there are 5 pictures (don’t worry, they’re small)
1. The corner buildings in 1750, note how the first building is 5 windows wide before a jump in parapet level with the next building.

2. Same buildings in 1818, this time a more accurate image, where we can see the pitched roof.

3. In the 1950s, note the Victorian oriel window added.

4 & 5. 2003 and oh dear, Joe Walsh tours, pink window dressings & ‘Come in & Visit’ alive & well.
Still – note the same parapet levels as evident 250 years ago, and the same amount of windows.

Note how fantastic a decent carved wood shopfront would look here wrapping around the corner, & the building repainted etc.

I was listening on the radio to a repeat of the fiasco surrounding the trees on O’ Connell St, and various City Council officials were defending the decision etc – which is fair enough.
What really annoyed me though was the language used by the same officals about the upgrading of the street – saying things like “It was thought that O’ Cll St had fallen into a delapidated condition” “It was widely accepted that the street was unacceptable as the city’s primary thoroughfare” “We at the City Council decided to to something about it” and blah de blah blah blah

Now hang on just a second here, it was virtually exclusively, soley and entirely the fault of the Corporation that the street fell into this condition in the first place!
And whereas it would be entirely unfair to accuse officals today of the mess made, they have nothing short of a hell of a cheek to skirt around the issue of how the place fell into the woeful state it is today, ie Corporation Complacency.

It was they who allowed its paving fall into the barely concievable disgusting state it is today.

It was they who stipped the street of the dignity of lamposts by ripping out every single one in favour of floodlights as a more practical solution.

It was they who allowed road traffic to utterly dominate the street for the past 30 years, reaching intolerable levels by the late 90s.

It was they who granted full planning permission in 1982 for the demolition of the last Georgian townhouse on the street, despite it containing some of the finest plasterwork in Ireland, despite it being the last tangible landmark of how the street originally looked, and despite its accociations with Daniel O’ Connell.

It was they who granted full permission for the Eircom office block, one of the ugliest buildings in the city.

It was they who allowed the demolition of Gilbeys, the demolition of the Metropole, and the gross intrusion of CIE and Burgerland buildings.

It was they who sliced the railings off O’ Connell Monument, which would inevitably lead to it being soiled with every type of matter concievable.

It was they who did nothing to impove the vast expanses of dull asphalt and tarmac on it’s carriageways.

It was they who allowed the prevelance of the most disgusting and offensive street furniture including 3rd World standard traffic lights and posts.

It was they who watched without so muchas a twitch as the street was devoured by fast-food joints and takeaways.

And as to whether they had resonsibilty for enacting the Derelict Sites Act upon the owners of the site beside the Carlton, admittedly I don’t know, or resonsibility for whole trees who’s lights were’nt working at Christmas, or whether they granted permission for so many other inappropriate schemes on the street.

It was they – above all however – that breached their policy of O’ Connell Street being a conservation area, a place of ‘major civic design importance’
They threw the street a bit of paving in 1988 as a consession from the scrapheap and left it at that.
As far as they were concerned it was on the Northside, Dublin 1, and the street was too large and too delapidated, and any investor who was willing to ‘put some money into the area’ was given pretty much a free hand to do as they wished.

Today, Dublin City Council should not be congratulated for commissioning an IAP, or ‘having the vision’ to execute major refurbishment works – it is, as would be described in the UK as merely ‘the bleedin obvious’
The work they are carrying out is only part of wider objectives to rectify the mess made by the same public body in the past.
Never should present officals be allowed to gloat and boast about the virtues of their current project until they publicly acknowledge that it is largely their own mess they’re cleaning up.

I agree whole-heartedly, there is now a geninue interest and dedication in the City Council to the betterment of Dublin City, indeed they almost thrive on rectifying the mistakes of the past.
At last there is a vision in the City Council, with utterly committed staff & planners, although the delays & hitches trail on as always.

They could have won and deserved approval for the O’ Connell St plans however – had they enacted them straight away.
And so the only area where they could have earned credit and applause – in initiating the street’s upgrading immediatly – was the very area they utterly failed, work began on the plaza some 5 years and 4 months after the publication of the IAP – in which – rather amusingly the then Lord Mayor stated he hoped to see much of the proposed work ‘carried out by the Millenium’.