O’ Connell Street, Dublin

Marlborogh St is a really depressing place and I think that when the cops cleared the junkies off O’Connell St a few years ago that most of them headed straight to Marlborogh St. The stretch between Talbot St and Abbey St must be the most rundown spot in Dublin. We should be nostalgic because this is what O’Connell St used to be like.

Marlborough Street’s junkie contingent appear to have taken up residence on the Eden Quay boardwalk – the Sheriff Street of Dublin’s boardwalks.

I thought the Gardai were going to patrol the O’ Connell Street and Boardwalk more regularly, to move along the scumbags and gurriers. That’s what they promised last year. The committment is’nt there as always!

Policing is what makes a city.

The kiosks will be next year at the earliest.

The statues will look great when finished it appears, although they will take a little getting used to given the dramatic shift, I remember when the front facade of Trinity was cleaned 15 years ago, it looked very strange for a while even if it did look a lot better. The contrast in the FR Mathew statue should be very interesting and one wonders was the original sculptor thinking more of an indoor sculpture than an outdoor one relying on the dual-colour for effect.

The pawn brokers in Marlborogh St is coming on well and it is good to see occupiers investing in their premises to such an extent, I had occaision to visit this business in December while Christmas shopping and they have really good jewellery. What was interesting about the visit was that there are so many vacant shops on Cathedral St that they were able to do a short-term let on the premises directly next door to their own under renovation. If this isn’t a sign of failure of the retail market in this area I don’t know what is because they could have chosen from a number of other shops in that terrace at the same time.

It is a very good point you make regarding the divergent nature of Marlborogh St which should be the strength of the Street, how many Streets have a parkland setting as good as the Department of Ed in the centre of the street? It is such an asset which allows the planting to be contained behind the railings giving a sense of greenery without the shadowing that on-street trees have. The section between Talbot St and Abbey St is in rag order there are at least 10 buildings that should have moves made to get the owners to implement their plans or be CPO’d. It is the failure of this section of the Street that has ensured that the entire area has failed to benefit from the Luas line unlike the Jervis/Liffey St area which has regenerated significantly.

It is a very well made point about the effect of buses parking for long periods on this section of Marlborogh St, it serves to effectively sever the Street into two sections making it a most unpleasant street to cross thereby making it an unactractive pedestrian environment which has made successful retailing more difficult at this location. The necessity of most bus routes to terminus in the City Centre is highly questionable in my opinion, what Dublin Bus could do is to examine which city bus routes could be doubled up to serve opposite sides of the city, for example an amalgamation of Route 130 from Clontarf to City Centre with Route 14 from the City Centre to Churchtown and so on. Buses such as the 16A function effectively on the route from Dublin Airport to Rathfarnham and this method eliminates a lot of city centre parking requirement and resulting congestion. The main obstacle to the implementation of this has been the fact that the only bridge that DB have used for cross city buses in the past has been O’Connell St and if one of the objectives of the O’Connell St IAP is to reduce traffic on the Street alternative routes would need to be found to allow new routings to occur. It is possible that both Capel St and Marlborogh St could be used as cross city routes with the existing Grattan Bridge and if the mooted pedestrian bridge for Marlborogh St/Hawkins St were upgraded to a public transport bridge from North to South and Butt bridge used in the opposite direction.

The ‘dreadful office building’ next to the Dublin Bus offices is Sackville House which was built in the early 70’s and featured in the film Adam & Paul as the location where the homeless junkies slept out whilst in town. It would be a good result if Cleary’s were to acquire it and expand into this Street, but I remember seeing the sale brochure on it about a year ago, it is unfortunately multi-tenanted with some of the leases having a term of greater than 10 years remaining.

The Abbey is dissapointing and it would appear that this situation will be ongoing for some time, The Irish Life will never deliver for Marlborogh St as each of the office buildings at this end of the complex has two entrances one to the Street and the other from the elevated and landscaped courtyard within the complex, it is not a difficult decision on where to put reception.

Is the Taxi rank on O’Connell St part of the IAP or will it be phased out, it has struck me that if it is to be accomodated then at that point of the Street there will be a necessity for six traffic lanes which will have adverse effects on the overplan.

Those pictures illustrate the point I am making about the median. What is the point in putting in top quality paving if it is only going to be covered in poles and mopeds?

This is from the City Council Press Office:

As part of the overall redesign and redevelopment of O’Connell Street, Dublin City Council is delighted to announce the completion of the cleaning and conservation works to the O’Connell Monument on O’Connell Street.
One of the first of the monuments to be completed, the O’Connell monument, is set to be revealed in all its glory over the coming week. Work on removing the extensive scaffolding that was erected to allow the work to be carried out, will begin today on Monday May 23rd
The O’Connell Monument was designed by John Henry Foley and unveiled in 1882 to commemorate Daniel O’ Connell, the Emancipator. The cleaning/conservation programme for O’Connell took an expert team over 1,000 hours to complete. The bronze figures (including O’Connell himself, a frieze with over thirty figures and the four winged victories) were first washed with detergent using soft bristle brushes. An acrylic pigment was painted onto areas where the bronze patina was lost and the final treatment involved the application of three
coats of protective wax which will form a weather proof barrier and enhance the appearance of the bronze.
The granite blocks were cleaned using a micro abrasive system that applied fine glass powder at a very low pressure. This cleans away dirt particles while avoiding any damage to the stone surface. All joints between the blocks were raked out by hand and repointed using a hydraulic lime mortar.
The works have tackled damage caused by environmental erosion, air pollution, bird droppings, graffiti and decay. However other damage such as the bullet holes in the O’Connell Monument from the 1916 Rising will not be repaired or restored. This type of damage tells part of the story of the monument, O’Connell Street itself and of the history and heritage of the state.
Indeed during the course of works ten bullet holes were identified in the figure of O’Connell alone with two bullets through his right temple. In all approximately thirty bullet holes were counted in total on the monument.
The cost for the works to all eight monuments in the O’Connell Street area will be in the region of 300,000 euros with around half that cost for the O’Connell Monument.
“The quality of the results is very impressive, with the O’Connell Monument looking old but well cared for” said Dublin City Council’s Heritage Officer Donncha O’Dulaing.

Hope they keep it and the rest looking like that in future

A fantastic job,

the contrast between the bronze and the stone is really striking, I am surprised that all the statues could be done for 300k given how specialist a job it is. I hope that this timely completion is a flavour of what we can expect to see in the future.