Spike & Kevin Myers

Since when was the GPO the focal point of the street? Nelson’s Pillar was obviously the focal point, and since that was blown to bits there hasn’t been a proper one. How could the GPO be a focus when it’s not in the middle of the street but to the side?
The spire would be on the same patch as Nelson was, and therefore be situated exactly where the focal point was originally intended!

When the Millennium Spire is erected, (if ever), and O’Connell Street is revamped/refurbished, it will all look so wonderful….and everyone will be wondering then what was all the negative unfounded fuss now.Please give it a chance. Better than SFA, now is’nt it…..and at least they are doing something, not just griping and moaning while sitting on their hands.

from todays Herald – “A decision on the controversial 120m spike for O’Connell Street may be announced this week. It is believed the structure will get the green light from Environment Minister Noel Dempsey and will be erected by next summer.”

here’s hoping but i won’t be holding my breath, the herald is more of a rag than a reliable source of information.

I’m for the Spike, but I would like to see O’Connell St revamped before it is errected ~ like the icing on the cake! And yes, the Herald is a dreadful rag.

Seamus, stop criticising the Spike like so many other begrudgers in this city, its dramatic, elegant, modern and is exactly what the street and the city needs. And as for your 1916 memorial idea, there’s already a memorial up the road on Parnell Square, not to mention Pearse St., Cathal Brugha St., Sean McDermott St., Con Colbert Rd., Heuston Station, Pearse Station, Connolly Station and any number of parks and estates in the suburbs, (e.g. the Ballymun towers). In fact the city is full of 1916 memorials, but (to stay on the Kevin Myers theme) inexplicably not a single city centre WW1/WW2 memorial a la Lutyens’ Cenotaph. There’s a prominent memorial in Stephen’s Green commemorating Irish aid to distressed civilians in post-war Germany, but not a single monument to remember the Irish who helped defeat the Nazis in the first place! Very odd in my opinion, but then this is an architectural forum not a political one.

Well said JOF I agree not only on the Spike / Spire but also on the forgotten Irishmen (all volunteers ) of both wars. It’s sad to think that a city centre commerative monument would probably have meet the same faith as The Pillar. Come out to Kilmainham ,only 3 miles from the GPO ( I’m sure you have ) and view the magnificent Great War Memorial Park as designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and built (by public subscriptions) in the 1930s by members of the Irish army and ex servicemen of WW1- this memorial garden is renown as the finest memorial gardens on these islands. It commerates the 60,000 Irishmen from 32 counties (greatest loss of Irish lives since the famine of the 1840s) who fell in WW1, it truly is the only all Ireland memorial in the country.

It is only a minutes walk from the other great Irish architectural / historical icon Kilmainham Gaol – such a diversity of architecture and above all the great diversity (both sides) of our history in the same district and so close to each other- they both deserve the same respect and protection. It always amazes me when I meet architectural students and architects in general that so few have even heard of Lutyens great work or visited the memorial park in Kilmainham – obviously it’s still not on the required list of student site visits ??