well what about the developments popping up in the shannonside ?
- This topic has 2,478 replies, 127 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 1 month ago by
.
- Posts
They must be the ones I heard about on the news dave123. It is interesting to know about these things. I must say it is exciting to hear about these developments popping up in Limerick.
http://www.wihcc.nl/index.php?pageId=30&lang=en
here is some interesting information about the riversidecities of Europe 🙂
a view from king johns castle
looking up at the clarion hotel
Baals bridge, classic red brick bridge 🙂hee hee, lol. i like that angle of view on the clarion hotel. that makes it look huge. it’s soaring. 😉
I think the building on henry street you’re referring to dave is the former an post property, it used to house their sorting office for the limerick area,it was bought by a local developer about a year ago but since then not much has happened, its probably complicated by the fact that it is a listed building and alterations can only be made to the inside, there was speculation that it was to be converted into third generation office space but seen as the riverpoint building has been fully let and the high level of vacant premises in the local office market maybe these plans have been put on hold, construction is also starting soon on 2 sites to the rear of the old county council buildings, this area has been derelict for a number of years and the development is long overdue, the 2 building are to contain apartments and retail outlets, if only the esb would do the right thing and sell their premises the redevelopment of the street would be complete.
Work is progressing well on the savoy site and word is that interest in the retail outlets is really strong, at last some good news for the city centre, especially with the jetland, city east and the crescent extension all nearing completion, an annoucement is also imminent on the rejuvenation of the michael street,ellen street,bank place area, hopefully it will be a properly thought out plan. Also dave i think you were asking about the corner of henry street, this was where the henry cecil bar used to be, it was one of the oldest bars in the city and was due to be renovated for retail use, unfortunately it collapsed when demolition work was underway on the carlton cinema, it was a real shame as the building at least had some character as opposed to the bank of scotland building which to me looks like an egg box!
Finally there hasnt been much news lately on the jurys site at sarsfield bridge, permission was granted for a 5 star hotel and conference centre and apartments were also included in the plan but its been appealed to an bord planeala on the grounds that the height of the development (up to 14 storeys) is not in keeping with the character of the area, seems to be a similar complaint to the ardhu site, in fairness i think this one will get the go ahead!.
Just saw a planning notice in the Leader for another hotel – at the corner of Pery Sq/ Barrington St – sounds like a small enough development involving the restoration of a Georgian house and a five storey addition to the rear. As for the development at Punches Cross – it was supposed to be a hotel with the original pub left intact, but it seems to have been put on hold for a while. There’s going to be a lot of hotels… and dunnes stores’ in Limerick when it’s all finished! Got this picture of Pery Sq from this website –
Thanks for that Turborg, the on post building was the one I was talking about because it was a corner site and looks a bit run down! :rolleyes:
I hope it gets rebuilt or refurbished as soon as possible 🙂
The two old sites behind the old county council buildings, is that behind O’Connell Avenue?
If that’s the one I’m thinking of, well the sites have a lot of potential 🙂Lol egg box, ah its not that bad, it was under tax incentitives :rolleyes: and at least it compliments the existing red brick and new buildings on the street, and I really do like Henry street now, having said that to, look at the state it was three years ago? 😮
That’s a very grand building, and a very tucked in area, not far from the park and the unfinished newtown Perry grid plan, which just ended along there and was meant to continue too, does anyone know what I’m on about lol….
As for punches cross, as far as I’m aware, that development is held up because, the developer is looking to change and have alterations to the exiting plans? I’m nearly sure I heard that somewhere,
The Hotels should get the height, I really don’t see why they should be objected, as there is everything going for it, been close the river, and the city centre and a stone throw to the existing high rises? that area has not much choice to build up as the land values there are high.
Fingers crossed on those hotels. 😎there’s a hotel going up on the Dock rd too, the site used to be garage, now its going to be replace with a 5 storey hotel , I believe it has started. 🙂 thanks for the pic shane , great help.
Well, Dave123 – you mentioned the terrace on Pery Sq – It has a fairly interesting history.
It was the last georgian terrace to be built in Limerick in 1836. It was financed by means of a tontine, whereby each of the investors in the project received rent on their investment while they remained alive. As each member of the tontine died so too, their shares and the last person alive ended up owning the whole terrace. Seemingly this form of investment resulted in an untimely end for many people and so these types of companies were outlawed, although i’m not sure if Pery Sq gave rise to any such carry on.
Also the terrace was meant to be part of a planned square around what is now the People’s Park – (I think it was for residents only, back in the day) however those six houses were never intended to be continued on, so it will be interesting to see how the new part of the hotel is integrated with the existing house – I think there is a vacant lot behind the house on Barrington St. If you look at the photo you can just about see that the entrances to the houses at either end of the terrace are to the side as opposed to being at the front and as well as that each of the end houses are set slightly forward. These gestures were apparently intended to give the whole scheme the appearance of a unified entity – like a large country house instead of 6 townhouses – so i read somewhere anyway.
No. 2 Pery Sq. has been restored to something of its original form by the civic trust and is open to visitors if you’re interested. Here’s an image from a book called,”The Building of Limerick” by Judith Hill which is a fairly good introduction to the history of the city’s planning and architecture.
Also the old county council buildings are the row of 5 or 7 converted georgian houses at the junction of O’Connell St and Mallow St, if that’s any help.
Here’s an image of the warehouse referred to earlier on (apologies for the picture quality). It’s from that Judith Hill book too.
Those warhouses are fairly decent buildings, there’s a few of them in Limerick, but don’t ever remember seeing them anywhere else, at least not on such a large scale – do they exist anywhere else?
Some promo stuff from the city council on pedestrianisation project –
I don’t wish to engage in a comparative analysis of the respective strengths/weaknesses of Limerick and Galway, but I do wish to make some very simple observations. Having lived in Galway for 9 years and Limerick for 4, I feel that I can draw some conclusions about the nature of both towns. In summary, I left Galway to move to Limerick for employment reasons – I left Galway reluctantly and I have missed it ever since. It is a wonderful town/city to live in and, afterall, that is ultimately what an urban space should be about. I left Limerick after 4 years as I found it dreary, unsafe, boring, and largely depressing. The essential difference between Galway and Limerick does not relate to size, population, weath, or retail parks. It relates to one thing which the CSO cannot measure – namely, attitude. Galway looks to the outside world and sees itself as an international town/city. That is evident in its festivals, its cosmoplitan flair, etc. Limerick looks inward on itself in the traditional old small town Irish way. It has no sense of the international. That is evident in the petty gangland squabbles which still bring it down. In short, Limerick might be more ‘urban’ than Galway, as some of you have claimed (by this I presume you mean it has more ‘big’ buildings and wider streets), but it is certainly far more ‘small town’ in its mentality.
On a related issue – surely the debate about whether Limerick/Galway are cities/towns is redundant – both are, by international standards, towns. Indeed, even in the UK both would be considered towns according to their population levels. Ireland (Rep.) has 2 cities – Dublin and Cork (at a stretch). Surely this should guide the discussion a little by casting a modicum of perspective on the debate.
PDLL, please don’t compare situations about Galway and Limerick , as this was dicussed on earlier times, and has gone over board. Although I’m Not dissmissing your views , but I don’t think you should bring up this issue on this thread because, its not about what Galway has that Limerick hasn’t. In my view Limerick is a city. Limerick is internationally known through a numerous reasons that i feel not to describe to you. 🙂
So if Galway or Limerick were to become cities by international stanards, how many people, at least, would have to live in them?
PDLL, people like you really piss me off, whats the point in opening up an old argument that ended about 2 months ago, fair enough you’re entitled to your opinion but to be honest you’re talkin serious bulls***,its obvious you’re from galway and are just trying to blow it up again, fair enough it has some bit of charm about it, but really i dont see what all the fuss is about, its city centre is pretty small and insignificant and to be truthful lacking in interesting buildings, there is something quite bland about them, just because the shops are painted bright colours and the streets are narrow and cobbled dosent mean its got more going for it than anywhere else, it comes across as a bit fake to me in fairness, a serious case of a city being overhyped. You’re not on the galway city tourist board or anything are ya?
You see its obvious you’ve fallen victim to press stereotyping, no matter what happens in galway or dublin it inevitably gets played down, heres an example, at the weekend a tv personality was mugged in dublin yet it only made a small column in the corner of PAGE 16 of a well known broadsheet, why?, because it happened in our beloved capital city of course!. If a similar incident happened in limerick it would make front page news and thats a fact!, there are plenty of things that happen in galway and yet go almost unreported, its widely known that galway has a serious public order problem yet its kept quiet so as not to upset the tourist trade!
This crap about limerick being unsafe is getting incredibly tired at this stage, is this opinion formed from your own personal experiences? or are you just a bandwagoner, personally i think its the later!
If you dont have any opinions of your own or have anything constructive to say, then theres no place for someone like you on this forum!
@PDLL wrote:
The essential difference between Galway and Limerick does not relate [in terms of] retail parks.
Galway is a mess; it more so than any other place in Ireland is choking on its own economic success by failing to translate this into good planning/architecture , I say this with a heavy heart as I have extensive connections with the City of Galway and it really annoys me when transients such as yourself point to retail parks as a bonus. The Headford Road roundabout must be the worst inner suburban road junction in any City in Europe. It is directly attributable to the planners who sanctioned it and the NRA for not performing their duties under the 1993 Roads Act.
Whilst Limerick is not perfect they are at least acheiving densities that Galway can only dream about in 5-10 years time. A little more control over the design quality of much of the infill and Limerick would get quite a good report card. I’m looking for a copy of the Limerick PLUTS if anyone can PM me.
Any future discussion on the fabulousness or otherwise of Galway might prove more insightful on its own thread if anyone has a particular interest.
Found this article recently on http://www.railnews.co.uk . A little off the point perhaps, but should be relevent to the future development of Limerick ;
SHANNON AIRPORT RAIL LINK STUDY ORDERED
Rail news & views | April 200511 April 2005
IRISH Railways — Iarnrod Eireann — has been instructed by Transport Minister Martin Cullen to carry out a feasibility study of a new link linking Shannon Airport with Limerick City.
The proposed rail spur to Shannon Town and the airport would be 10 kilometres (six miles) long.
The study will investigate a number of issues including cost, passenger numbers, the route, the location of stops and changes. The report is due to be published within six months.
The Shannon Rail Partnership has carried out a number of studies in the past two years, which indicated that the rail link will be viable.
Commenting on the study ordered b y the Transport Minister, a member of the Shannon Rail Partnership, Padraig MacCormaic, said: “We think there will be a successful and positive outcome from the study, especially with the airport growing and Ryanair and other airlines coming in, which will bring in thousands of people to the airport and they won’t all want to be hiring cars. If a rail link was in place they would be able to get to Limerick and Ennis quickly and conveniently.â€
PLUTS sounds vaguely familiar TP, think I may have come across it before.Will try an help but little more explanation might jog my memory.
Apologies for stirring up the Galway-Limerick debate – I have just entered this thread and perhaps should not have done so in the manner I did. I had wished to deal with the issue of Limerick and Galway being referred to as cities, but I thought a little bit of personal experience might also be useful.
To answer Tuborg’s reply – I am not from Galway and I do not work for the Galway tourist board; I have not fallen victim to press stereotyping; and the bit about Limerick being unsafe is based upon my own personal experiences.
Oddly enough, I was subject to two incidents of public disorder in Galway, so my judgement is not flavoured by some romantic image of that particular town. Despite that, I could quote many many more incidents of violence which I witnessed in Limerick in a shorter period of time (like some 10 murders in 2001 or 2002 – I cannot remember – why don’t you check your precious CSO statistics for violent crime if you want to avoid the crap you read in the papers). If I did that, however, I would be accused of putting Limerick down, so why would I bother. ANyway, nobody wants to go down the road of I saw this and I saw that in whatever town in Ireland. There is no doubt that Limerick gets a rough deal in the press – but it could do a lot to improve its image and to make itself a more desireable place to live. Seize the day and all of that. Funnily enough, when I worked there many of my colleagues praised the city no end and yet where did many of them choose to live? – Killaloe and Annacotty. Strange.
If you leave Ireland and go back to it with a fresh and unbiased pair of eyes, you will notice a number of interesting things. 1. Galway and Limerick are both medium sized towns (we could debate population definitions for years and still not come to a final answer – indeed the debate has been raging in this part of the world since the Victorian period and before and we are still no closer to some absolute figure. For my own part, I would probably offer a figure of 150K + as being a reasonable estimate for a city). Those who argue strongly that Galway and Limerick are anything more than medium sized towns simply uphold the old Freudian penis-envy type mentality which obviously feels inadequate when comparing the towns of Ireland with those in other countries. Sligo Corportaion (or Borough Council of Sligo) is a classic example insofar as it continually presses for city status for Sligo – a town you can still walk across in 1 hour. The civic authorities in Tuam wouldn’t be far behind (‘welcome to the Cathedral City of Tuam’ and all of that). Surely this is an example of the Irish sense of humour in action. It is obvious that Ireland still has a deep sense of its own inadequacies and one place this comes out is in its sense of urbanism. This is so very obvious when reading the self-inflated reports etc on the great metropolis of Dublin – a small to average city by western European standards. Some times you would imagine it is another Shanghai by the way it is referred to in the media. 2. The towns of Ireland are largely unorganized, dirty, lacking in serious and widespread indigenous architectural merit and traffic ridden. What little architectural merit there is is undermined by the people’s inability to show pride in what they have and to keep the place in order (and, yes, Tuborg, I am Irish). Personal profit is, after all, all that matters – Yeats was right on that one. My own home town of Sligo is a filthy hovel with broken down streets, falling down buildings, boarded up windows, dirty footpaths, no public transport worth speaking of, a lack of play amenities for children, very few cultural attractions of any national or international merit and a mentality to go with it. That is a story replicated across many other Irish towns – the only variation is that some towns exhibit it on a larger scale than others. In that context, Galway is probably the best of a very dismal lot – that is why I celebrated the things which it does offer – including a greater degree of cleanliness than many Irish towns, some nice public amenities including play areas for kids, a reasonable public transport network and some interesting cultural attractions and the people actually make an effort to keep it in good condition – they know what makes them their bread . In addition, it has the bonus of the Salthill promenade – a designated public walking area which is not so common in Irish towns.
The beligerent language and comments of such contributors as Tuborg are simply a verbal expression of the type of ignorant mentality that has informed Irish urban planning since the foundation of the State and the ‘success’ of our new found wealth. Perhaps Limerick is just a very good example of that mentality expressing itself in an architectural and spatial form. Tuborg, I do hope you can look beyond the smoke stained red brick and see that.
@PDLL wrote:
Oddly enough, I was subject to two incidents of public disorder in Galway, so my judgement is not flavoured by some romantic image of that particular town. Despite that, I could quote many many more incidents of violence which I witnessed in Limerick in a shorter period of time (like some 10 murders in 2001 or 2002 –
You must be unique in actually witnessing 10 murders anywhere in the World in 2 years; was it a mass murder or dide you have to give witness statements on each one?
That is some analysis you were assaulted twice in Galway, saw 10 murders in Limerick and think that your home town is a filty hovel, have you ever considered emmigrating?
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
