“strangely unlovable city” – Limerick

strange!!…. not as much as a word of concern from minister (of national monuments and many other things) Sile De Velera and her department Duchas on Treasury’s spec’ 3 model office blocks (650,000 ft sq) planned to face Duchas’s Kilmainham Gaol where her grandfather Eamon (past President of Ireland) and the only leader to survive execution after the 1916 rebellion was released as its last prisoner in 1922.

The residents of and tourists to Dublin’s historic Kilmainham in the year 2002 would gladly swap the proposal for the flat roofed model office blocks planned to stand opposite Kilmainham Gaol for BQ Enterprise’s good, bad or indifferent 103 bed hotel / tourist development that’s proposed to stand opposite Limerick’s historic King John’s Castle that’s causing so much concern to minister De Velera her department Duchas and the owner of Katy Daly’s pub.

change the bloody record John

Must say a very apt comparison John. I wonder why she is so silent on this one ??

Another case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand aspires to.
Limerick corporation have invested a lot of time and money in the last 10 years on improving and conserving the historic King’s Island area. And, despite some horrible pastiche they have done an admireable job. The area from Thomond bridge to Baal’s bridge is quite cohesive, quite beautiful.
Walking between these bridges you span the evolution of the city from early medieaval and Viking to the Georgian Newtown.
It has a varied skyline – St. Mary’s and Cathedral, St. Munchin’s church and the Catholic St. Mary’s church.
Anything that would obliterate these views could not be countenanced. Surely such a large building would be out of scale with the area. The only large building in the area is the Museum in King John’s. Controversial though it is, I really like it – but it only works because it is viewed as a colossus, its mass signifying importance. Also, being a civic building, and not a ‘for profit’ building like an hotel lend it a certain level of architectural licence.
There are plenty of examples of domestic 16th and 17th century architecture in this area, an area which to this day is 95% residential. A building such as that proposed will be a mistake.
I had to laugh at the wooden windows bit in the press clipping – wow, just think they’ll be nearly as elegant as the windows in the newer O’Mahony Pike @zoe/danninger developments. Imagine – once upon a time, people tried to minimise glazing bars and astragals – what were they thinking of!

These two proposals for such sensitive sites opposite King John’s Castle and Kilmainham Gaol are out of context and both are deserving of better proposals and vision. Both are deserving the attention and comments of our minister for Arts and Culture although she apparently has only interest in what is near her own constituency.

Both fail to address the cultural aspects when they present themselves so clearly and should concentrate themselves on these aspects and on how these historic national monuments and protected buildings should and could be enhanced by contemporary design and not skirt and loom around them as is the case with what is proposed for Limerick and Kilmainham.