World City Icons.
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It’s strange that a power station is loved so much, especially since that photo shows it sourrounded in a lethal looking smog. I suppose it could have something to do with the fact that it was the last piece of Ireland that many saw leaving the country on a boat in the seventies and eightys. A bit like fasnet rock lighthouse, which became known as Irelands teardrop, for many a tear was shed seeing the last bit of Ireland dissappearing over the horizon.
Well you won’t be seeing it on a postcard anytime soon.
He’s cheating PTB – he only drew that up two minutes ago! 😀
Yes it’d be nice to have a model of it alright, as it would be with many buildings. Pity they’re not promoted in Ireland in that form like they are with other ‘world city icons’. (though I have heard of the Custom House moulded from butter, but that’s another story), The Spire could make quite a nice note holder…Whatever about the Eiffel Tower being the most famous image of Paris, it has to be the most famous icon of any country in the world, if not the most famous building too – for good or evil. Nobody could possibly match that.
What always fascinates me walking by Molly every day is how everybody knows who she is!
How the heck do Japanese or Canadian or Belgian tourists have the faintest knowledge of this charitably depicted woman with a fruit cart from the depths of Dublin folklore?!Yes I just may have snapped that Poolbeg pic Morlan 😉 – through the train window of all places, hence the slight blurring of the clouds through the chimneys. Now enlarged, framed and hanging on the wall above me here 🙂
There’s no smog PTB, merely wholesome mistiness – Poolbeg is now gas-powered and nothing but water vapour comes from the chimneys, though those lower ones may be a different story.
Yep, any excuse for a quick photoshop. 🙂
There’s the Dublin City Hall made completly out of LEGO in Ballyfermot Library. It’s got to be seen to be belived. It’s huge. Must get a photo on Monday,
Yeah, good shot Graham. Living on the southside, it’s more difficult to get good sunset/rise from this angle. Good work man.
Just a rough list of city icons from around the world off the top of my head.
Paris – Eifel Tower
London – Big Ben
Brussels – That world fair/exhibition sculpture
Berlin – Brandenburg Gate
Copenhagen – Little Mermaid statue
Oslo – That huge stone sculpture of people
Geneva – Jet d’eau
Rome – Collisuem
Athens – Parthenon
Mostar – Turkish bridge
Istambul – Hagia Sofia
Prauge – King? Charles Bridge
Budapest – The suspension bridge
Moscow – St Basils? Cathederal
Volgograd – The Motherland
Jerausalem – Dome of the rock
Dubai – Burj al Arab
Hong Kong – China Central Bank
Shanghi – Pearl Tower
Beijing – The Forbidden City
Tokyo – Tokyo Tower
Kyoto – Golden Pavillion
Sydney – Sydney Opera House
Los Angeles – ?
San Fransisco – Golden Gate Bridge
St Louis – The Gateway Arch
Chicago – Sears Tower/Hancock centre
Toronto – C.N. Tower
New York – Empire State building
Wasington D.C. – The White HouseWhat did I get wrong or miss?
Spot on PTB, care to add Dublin and a suggest to that list,
The Empire State is by far the most famous skyscraper in the world, even though most people probably couldn’t recognaise it and only know the name. It would be nice to think Ireland could a land mark that people would know of it’s name through out the world.
I’d agree with most of that PTB. I’d still stick with the Ha’penny Bridge as the main icon of Dublin.
@PTB wrote:
What did I get wrong or miss?
You missed Egypt/Giza most school children could fill that one in. Some of the memorials in Wasington might rank as high as the White house.
Yes washington was very difficult. Capitol hill came close as did the reflecting pool and obelisk. What is a siuatable icon for LA?
@Morlan wrote:
The Eiffel tower is impressive.. O’Connell’s pole is not.
Anyway, The Ha’penny Bridge is the Dublin City icon.
Without meaning to cause offence to anyone, the ha’penny bridge is a poor symbol and when considering the wealth of impressive architecture in Dublin, doesn’t do Dublin Justice.
My favourites –
In the interests of humour I’ve stuck in a bogey one. See if you can get it…………………The Spike
O’Connel bridge
The Chimney’s
Mc Donalds (O’Connell street branch)Some others may be
Bombay – The Gateway to India
Agra – The Taj Mahal (Although how many people know the city?)
Rio de Janeiro – The statue of Christ the Redeemer
Edinburgh – Edinburgh Castle
Munich – The Olympic StadiumStrangely, when I was asking myself the question, I came up with the Fernsehenturm for Berlin, although on reflection, the Brandenburg Gate is a better answer.
Within an Irish context, would people say outside Dublin
Cork – Shandon Steeple
Galway – The Spanish Arch
Limerick – King John’s Castle
Waterford – Reginald’s Tower?
Provincial Towns:
Kilkenny Kilkenny Castle
Drogheda Boyne framed by the rail viaduct
Dundalk Imperial Hotel
Port Laiose Heritage Hotel
Tallaght The Square😀
It’s nice that our regional cities have well-known icons of their own: something you don’t immediately think would be the case, but most have instantly recogisable structures of one form or another – for good or evil in some cases.
Yes I’d still go along with the Ha’penny being representative of Dublin, on a par with the Four Courts from the west – there’s simply very few other structures, or more importantly scenes, old or contemporary that equate to them. Though saying that, in reviewing one of very few Irish dramas that make it onto BBC 1 London, AA Gill in the Sunday Times wrote a piece under the impression the entire thing was set in Belfast, despite the Ha’penny featuring in it, and in the opening credits! – much to the delight of the letters editor the following week. “You were with us for 800 years and you’ve forgotton what you built us already”…..
Morlan! *taps watch*
Still waiting on that City Hall…@Graham Hickey wrote:
Morlan! *taps watch*
Still waiting on that City Hall…I didn’t make it out on Monday. I promise I’ll get a photo next week!
If I might be so bold as to stick another picture of the Poolbeg Chimneys up..
Took that a month ago outside the Dollymount House pub.
Great building (singular?), still the tallest structures in Dublin by miles.They may not be our Sydney Opera House, but maybe our Sydney Harbour Bridge.
There’s something wonderfully honest about them, something quintessentially Dublin about the two big chimneys in red and white, that haven’t been turned into loft apartments or concert halls. Something tying us to our not to distant past.
Plus they have the best location of any structures in the country.@Bren88 wrote:
You missed Egypt/Giza most school children could fill that one in. Some of the memorials in Wasington might rank as high as the White house.
Egypt isn’t a city – it is a country (topic is world city icons). Most, but sadly not all, schoolkids would have gotten that right.
What about the Customs House and Trinity. Surprised these haven’t received a mention. Do people really think that when some guy from Australia or Singapore or Seattle is asked what icon he associates with Dublin, he will say – oh ya, the Poolbeg Chimneys. Most foreign visitors won’t even know about them or have seen them. Oddly enough, despite their unabashed architectural splendour and the rich cultural heritage underpinning them, they don’t even appear on postcards. What is the Irish tourist board doing these days?
The same as most departments..sweet f.a. Either that or moving down to Kerry. Or both!!
The argument that the Poolbegs are a Dublin icon for Dubliners is fair, I think.
For me, the few upstream from O’Connell Bridge at dusk is Dublin. And donwstream for that matter. Or the view of a packed Grafton St you get from the top deck of any bus parked by the Provost’s House. Or the buzz in Temple Bar as afternoon becomes evening.Building-wise, I go with College Green as an architectural set. Or the Custom House.
Though the big white Guinness building, seen from Collins Barracks is more Dublin than the two of those.
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