O’ Connell Street, Dublin
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There was no plaaning legislation as we know it back then, and no An Taisces – no need I suppose.
Generally everything built was nice & good quality, if boring sometimes
…then the odd freak like the Bread CompanyEven back then there was controversy – think of the fuss made by Irish architects when Sunlight Chamber was built in 1901
The building met with resistance from architects in Dublin at the time due to the fact that a foreign architect had been hired (Lutyens also had this problem). Upon its completion, ‘The Irish Builder’ referred to it as the ugliest building in Dublin, while a few years later the same journal called it ‘pretentious and mean’.
@kefu wrote:
Don’t joke about things like that. We all know it’s true. And they would probably have sent in a cut and pasted objection.
You sound so bitter Kefu,
ABP made a decision based on the facts and chose to overlook a couple of typos, I know the individual involved and I don’t know how she balances all the work she takes on between professional, family and voluntary work. The scheme you refered to last summer has thankfully passed through ABP as the architects addressed ABP’s concerns and I have no doubt the scheme will be highly sucessful.Of course the Bread Building would be objected to and entirely with good reason – what a ridiculous thing to ever have happened.
If it was still there today of course, it would be wrapped up nice and comfy in fluffy nostalgia and would be untouchable as a monument to crazy Victoriana. The fact that its ‘oldness’ would be in character with its surroundings would also make it immune to any criticisim.
But of course it should never have been built in that location.Here’s a still from footage of Michael Collins’ funeral in 1922 in the newly wrecked Uppper O’Cll St.
The trees are pretty well established, but you can clearly see the newer ones amongst the older specimens.
To put some shape on the bomb site, the red lines indicate where Nth Earl St and Cathedral St are.That is one depressing image Graham,
I’d gladly live with the Bread Co if the rest of the street had of survived
Was’nt Cathal Brugha Street and Sean McDermot Street newly created here after the 1916 Uprising/Civil War blitz …or did they always exist. See the hole to the left in the photo, was’nt O’Connel Street continuous and unbroken here prior to the devastation?
there was a small laneway (greggs lane)leading off o’connell street at this point, following a line similar to the angle at which the academy hotel now fronts the steet. At this time sean mc dermott strett (glouchester street)terminated at a church located in the middle of what is now cathal brugha. The Gardners were originally buried in this church. Think the church was knocked about this time for structural reasons creating the new approach to o connell street.
…and the replacement ’20s church is pretty cute, an underrated gem I think.
Regarding the photo of O’C St. in ’22, you can see that all the buildings destroyed in 1916 on that side of the street – ie. from Eden Qy. up to Cathedral St. – had already been replaced (the Dunnes Stores redevelopment on Stephen’s St./Georges St. first lodged plans in 1997 and is still not finished 🙁 ). Then everything from Cathedral St. down to Cathal Brugha St. came down in ’22 – there doesn’t seem to have been any overlap in the destruction.
Hi,
This Church used to be called St. Thomas’ Church and it was modelled similarly to that on Thomas Street – palladian in style. it was very long. The Church was demolished and Cathal Brugha Street drives through where it once stood on Marlborough Street. The Church on the Island replaced it, and is now the church of the combined parishes of St George and St Thomas.
It made sense to place an opening there as it was a vey long uninterrupted streetscape – it provides more access and commercial potential. Maybe thats the reasoning of the proposed strret that was to link Moore and O’Connell via the site adjacent the Carlton. I have to say that the breath-taking pace of development around that site makes the hapless Carlton stick out as more than ever – Parnell Street is finally coming together and it is becomming a major retail/leisure street. But as for the Parnell Sq. end of O’Connell Street, well, we wait, and wait, wand wait…..
The current church is lovely isn’t it, that wine-coloured 30s brickwork always looks so good.
The fact it’s on an island gives it a charming toytown-like quality too 🙂Greggs Lane can be seen on many 18th century maps, as can the predecessor of Cathedral St, Stable Lane, of which there were 50 million others in the city at the time.
I don’t necessarily agree about Cathal Brugha St being needed up there though – it’s very wide and dilutes the impact of the ‘mall effect’ on O’Cll St, stranding the Findlater House terrace between it and Parnell St, almost detaching it from the rest of the thoroughfare – perhaps if it was narrower and a bit further southIt’s interesting that apparently none of the post-1916 buildings were damaged in 1922, imagine if Clerys had been hit just after opening their doors the same year – it would have been like the completion of the 8 year refurbishment of the GPO 6 weeks before Easter Monday 1916…
Just on the Bread Co building again, it’s facinating to note that some vestiges of that mad structure still exist today – not original features as such, but the precedent set by it.
As one would expect, post-1916 the owners of the building would have wanted to rebuild their premises to the original floor area considering the height of their building previously. And sure enough, despite the new regular parapet height and pompous neo-classical frills, they still managed to squeeze and extra floor out of the building by plonking a flat-topped storey on the roof, just set back from the street. It’s funny to see it in contrast to the street facade, an ugly unadorned lump – true 20s Irish architecture. It is the only building in the terrace (now the BoI) that has this addition. I’ve a pic here of it somewhere to post.@Graham Hickey wrote:
Of course the Bread Building would be objected to and entirely with good reason – what a ridiculous thing to ever have happened.
If it was still there today of course, it would be wrapped up nice and comfy in fluffy nostalgia and would be untouchable as a monument to crazy Victoriana. The fact that its ‘oldness’ would be in character with its surroundings would also make it immune to any criticisim.
But of course it should never have been built in that location.Here’s a still from footage of Michael Collins’ funeral in 1922 in the newly wrecked Uppper O’Cll St.
The trees are pretty well established, but you can clearly see the newer ones amongst the older specimens.
To put some shape on the bomb site, the red lines indicate where Nth Earl St and Cathedral St are.The backs of the houses in the centre of the image look suspiciously like a 1980’s office block
It does have that look about it alright – I was thinking how strangely modern it looked too…
Here’s a pic of the Bread Co replacement – the Hibernian Bank, with upper storey (if not two) visible from O’Cll Bridge.
It looks like a 30s toilet extention to a national school 🙂Also here’s an interesting detail from the building next to the Gresham on Upper O’Cll St – a date of 1777, presumably referring to the business that established themselves there, which if the case, would be important as an indicator of the residential street turning commercial
Coincidentally, 1777 is the very year the WSC recieved the grant from Parliament to extend Sackville Mall to the river.Also thrown in Carroll’s ‘Irish Gifts’ first floor windows which have been fitted out with PVC, looking lovely facing out onto the plaza – and appear a heck of a lot newer than Beresford Place. These windows are certainly not more than 6/7 years old, if not much newer, yet this terrace has been protected since at least 1991.
They look horrendous next to the magnificent steel or sash windows of various neighbours.@Graham Hickey wrote:
Also here’s an interesting detail from the building next to the Gresham on Upper O’Cll St – a date of 1777, presumably referring to the business that established themselves there, which if the case, would be important as an indicator of the residential street turning commercial
Coincidentally, 1777 is the very year the WSC recieved the grant from Parliament to extend Sackville Mall to the river.Also thrown in Carroll’s ‘Irish Gifts’ first floor windows which have been fitted out with PVC, looking lovely facing out onto the plaza – and appear a heck of a lot newer than Beresford Place. These windows are certainly not more than 6/7 years old, if not much newer, yet this terrace has been protected since at least 1991.
They look horrendous next to the magnificent steel or sash windows of various neighbours.I think that older buildings get away with set backs more because the building materials were generally unchanged in days gone by as illustrated by your photos particularly the granite front.
In more modern schemes there has been a tendency to put the airconditioning units on top which stick out terribly and are often bedecked in mobile phone antennae, one of the reasons I really like Georges Quay Plaza is the way they future proofed their services provision under the ‘pointy hats’Did anyone see the carol singers on O’Connell St plaza lastnight?
I’m not normally a fan of this type of thing but between the tree and the refurbished setting it looked like something you wouldn’t have expected in Dublin only a few short years ago.
Walking around Dublin today as a non-Dubliner ( who has lived nevertheless in 5 foreign large cities) I have to say that Dublin is a great Christmas City. The only better I have been to ( and lived in for a time) is New York.
The flashing wreaths on Henry St are great fun, the latest addition. Still preferred the blue lights that used to make up the big stars here though – they were changed to red last year.
There’s lots of setbacks on O’Cll St, but by far the most distinguished is the Gresham terrace with the copper-clad mansard storey. The green adds a real splash of colour too to the otherwise deadpan facades.
An example of setbacks not working on modern buildings if not treated properly is right next to here – Findlater House.
Nuff said…How long is a piece of string? To be fair, it would appear things are running to schedule – then again one may argue the Iarnrod Eireann ploy, just timetable in an extra lump of time onto each journey to cover yourself.
Why was the western side, arguably the most congested pavement in the country, started first, considering whatever project carried out during this time would coincide with Christmas? Perhaps logistical reasons necessitated it.
Also, something that was bugging me at every ped crossing on the street was how close buses seemed to be passing by the kerb and pedestrians waiting at the crossings, but it was difficult to work out why. But just looking this morning, sure buses completely fill up the inside lane, literally from kerb to middle line there is nothing but the width of the 3 cobbles along the kerb free, not more than a few inches. The outside lane seems to be marignally larger.
Why are the lanes so narrow – by the nature of their width, wing mirrors and side space needed between vehicles, two buses simply cannot pass within their designated lanes without significantly over-riding the cycle lane – which as mentioned before is awkward to use in its current position.Wing-mirror clipping is now going to be a feature on the side pavement crossings on what is a supposedly tailor-made pedestrian environment. It is the only element on the refurbished parts of the street that is uncomfortable for pedestrians, but it’s a big one, as anyone who’s been whacked by a wing mirror will tell you.
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