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This is alot of ridiculous nonsense. Pure and utter fantasy nonsense. No government in ireland in the whole of the 20th century had the competence or desire to carry out such grandiose world class projects, and that included all the celtic tiger governments which had the opportunity to. That situation shows no hint of a beginning of an end to it’s persistence. Anything which is more than decent is doomed before it gets started. As for T21- if I ever see a dublin underground in my lifetime, I vow to eat my hat.

If you look at pictures of the customs house at night or in black and white you can see how well the dome really works on the building- and realise how plain the building would be otherwise- but this is actually impossible to appreciate in daylight as it is. What an awful awful state of affairs. On the subject of Gandon- his other beauty down the river – also ruined by the bolsheviks- is in my opinion in a very very poor state – the stone looks very dull grey in many places and around the back everything is just a mess. Also a very ironic misfortune- some of the most beautiful trees along the quays are exactly where they should’nt be – blocking the magnificent view of the four courts! Further east there are no trees blocking some horrible old worn out georgian factory flats! If only one could move a tree. In any case I’d like to see at least some of them removed from in front of the four courts.

VOTE- Which is the most magnificent classical building in Ireland – Belfast city Hall, Old Parliament Building (Bank of Ireland), Custom’s House, Four Courts, Trinity College ensemble or Dublin City Hall.

I think either the Bank of Ireland or Belfast City Hall. It should be in Dublin! 😡

I agree that there is a major problem with speed and competence in dublin when it comes to getting something done. I mean consider the ridiculous amount of time spent on building a modest tram system which is broken in two or a train station extension, Or consider the customs house, It’s an absolute jewel of architecture in the isles, even in europe, yet everytime I look at it I’m horrified when my eyes gaze upwards at the dome. It completely ruins the building. How could a world famous tiger economy leave it’s customs house- customs house of all things!- looking like this?! As if there was some shortage of portland to face the dome in- the whole bloody facade of that monstrosity of a new entrance to the gallery is made out of it! There are some nice contemporary buildings in dublin though you have to admit: the tall buildings are not all that bad. I rather like liberty hall or at least I appreciate that it could be alot worse. And what about the Ulster bank buidling- there’s no modern building in europe which surpasses it. The IFSC buildings across the river are nice too though I would have loved to see them sychronized better with the ulster bank- the pyramid’s should be more evident. In fact a pyramid would really look great on liberty hall too. Plus the millenium tower is rather nice. The biggest blotch on dublin must be the corporation bunkers- which are in fact a crime although not as bad as the irish life buildings on abbey street- the architect should lose his irish life for that one. from what I’ve seen of the models the U2 tower looks like an utter abomination to me – how nice one of those elliptic buildings like in london and barcelona would have been there. The Heuston Gate is uninspiring. Sigh- it’s really not that difficult to create a nice modern building. Just copy what already worked. it’s all about galss- concrete is bad bad. Poor, forever ugly dublin.