O’ Connell Street, Dublin
- This topic has 3,789 replies, 212 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 6 months ago by
.
- Posts
I saw them early this morning, ….looked good despite being leafless. The whole stretch of plaza in front of the GPO is nearly finished as well….looks great too.
O’Connell street will look brilliant when finished!Speaking of the shite Father Mathew statue end of the street, what about the ‘Taxi Driver’s Shrine’ restored (in 2001 says the plaque) with a PVC window!!
What’s the story with the Spire? I’ve been away for 6 months and it looked shite last time, but then it had it’s new lights? Are the newer lights even shiter?
the new cube trees are a wonderful symbol of mans contemt for nature.
Originally posted by what?
the new cube trees are a wonderful symbol of mans contemt for nature.No way man…..The new cubed trees are a symbol of man’s control of nature within a civic environment as what it was from the dawn of civilization. Parterres, topiaries, manicured lawns, bedding containers etc……
If ye want natural go out into the countryside!(Get those weeds outta yer garden too!)
i wasnt being sarcastic, i think they are great. i think its a nice aknowledgement of the fact that these trees have just been placed in the plaza because we wanted them to be there. architectural morals and all that. i hate the countryside wheres the rigor?
The trees will look great won’t they… a really dramatic change to the street. You can alos get an idea of just how far the new paving will extend out on the sides down at Abbey St. one other thing is floodlighting and pavement recessed lighting…. I havent seen any indication that this is being allowed for. Thats a pity. I think the statues on the street would benefit from some nightime ilumination.
Noticed this today too – one would have thought lighting would be sunken into the regular pattern of the plaza.
Hopefully the statues can still be lit – such lighting is naerly always placed on the back of street lighting – like the light illuminating the top of Parnell’s monument.There’s a new pedestrian crossing going in at Penneys which will link to Clerys at the other side, which is welcome.
And those chromed traffic signals look great – these should have been installed years ago.
The little mini signals on the same posts are fun.Just came back to Dublin for Christmas and can I just say that the street looks absolutely shite.. And the lights on the top of the spire are so dull compared to before. Is there any hope left?
the street is a construction site, you can hardly judge from that ?
I agree, a little more patience is required. In comparison to five years ago O’Connell St is coming on great.
Agreed – although yes, the Spire lighting looks woeful.
Have they shoved a sodium streetlight up there or something?1st January 2004
Well its finally made it, O’ Connell Street’s derelict site is 25 years old this year, a gaping wound in the capital’s main thoroughfare for a quarter of a century.
Congratulations to all involved – the old Corpo, the new City Council, the site owners – you must all be chuffed to bits.We should hold some sort of celebration in September to mark the occasion – any suggestions welcome.
We can send them to the CC, see if they’re interested in joining in – might even provide some funding for crisps and nibbles.Whatever about the previous 20 years and not enacting the Derelict Sites Act, for the CC to renege on the develpment of this site after the IAP, with all the messing around with Treasury Holdings and others is just disgraceful.
Next month the IAP will have been published for 6 years, and still there hasn’t been a sod turned on either the Carlton or the derelict site.
At least they had the cop-on to clean the Carlton’s facade and to erect scaffolding over the site – something at least.Forget this country’s inability to handle major infrastructure projects – it can’t even handle this!
What was the name of the bar on Moore St?
The scruffy looking one at the Parnell st end that was used to hold up the Carlton development for about three years.A party with Pavorotti would be good!!!
You could also contact the heritage council for a grant I am sure it would be an event of ‘gombeen cultural significance’
If all else fails you could always hijack a critical mass gathering
Trader John’s is the pub on Moore Street……booking available now.
Bertie and Co (ie His glam daughter and hubby) all invited!
Westlifers to profide the entertainment as well as ”salt o de earth” Brendan O’ Carroll!Interesting discussion.
When in Dublin over Christmas (I generally get there once a year to look remaining friends up), I was pleasantly surprised by not having to queue to get into pubs or clubs and to be able to drink alcohol until whatver time of the early morning I liked. Is that progress?
But anyway, the real point of this post: I discussed the obvious shortcomings of the infrastructure with a friend practising in Dublin.
The Germans have great infrastructure, and they expect it to be clean, efficient and reliable and get very annoyed if trains are late. There are individual bus timetables at every bus stop and you can normally set your watch by the buses. In Berlin there are even public clocks on poles at most major intersections, at least in the West part.
So, my friend agreed, as he’d spent some years here too, the Germans do do infrastructure, it’s one of the things they do well.
We discussed the shortcomings in Dublin, the interminable LUAS saga, the lack of any urbanity in the new build sprawls etc.
His way of not dying young of apoplexy and blood-pressure related ailments is to lean back, buy a car for himself, his wife and, as they get older probably each kid (to ensure mobility and freedom from the less-than-perfect transport system), and just accept the fact “WE DON’T DO INFRASTRUCTURE” Full stop. Period.Your statement that we dont do infrastructure is a bit vague. Who is “WE”? If the correct legislation existed and not so much corruption and arsing around in the initial stages then we would very much “do infrastructure”. The engineers and construction workers are excellent here. Give them the money and let them away at it instead of spending the same money talking about things and see what happens. The Port tunnel has given problems to residents etc but look at the scale of it. Look at how the builders, engineers etc will have the whole thing built in about half the time people spent talking about it. If they’d been given the money wasted on so much bolloxing about at the start plus the money spent on the tunnel, they’d have it finished by now along with the airport metro.
Before anyone starts, I’ve been all over europe and know what the infrastructure is like. I’m pointing out that we are capable of doing it too if the initial planning/objections/consultancy etc stages were sorted out
By “we” I meant the Irish. An saying “we” don’t do infrastructure does not mean a critcism of the consultant services available but is a criticism of politics and also of society to a certain extent. “We” obviously do not really feel it is that important to have good infrastructure or otherwise “we” would have elected the politicians to get it done. There is no point in getting het up about the crap infrastructure, accept it, we don’t do infrastructure 😉
the state has only had the finances required to build decent infrastructure since 1995 on, most of which was given back to the public in the form of much needed tax cuts … you can’t expect the infrastructure fairy to come along one night and sort everything. Most of the delays are down to objections from the moaning public themselves.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
