GrahamH
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And they’ve only a handful of them in that building anyway!
I never thought I’d say this, but well done to the PVC supplier in the case pictured below – these are the ‘best’ PVC replicas I’ve ever seen – located in a landmark Georgian building on Dundalk’s main street – but only from a distance. And even then the large shiny single panes are blatently evident.
Up close all is truly revealed.
I could not believe it when I saw the original sashes had been removed, having not been around this area for a while.
These PVCs look brand spanking new, indeed the paintwork around the frames hasn’t even been redone since. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were put in in the past few weeks or couple of months – though wouldn’t bank on it…This is an absolute disgrace – this building simply must be currently protected, and probably in an ACA. I’m very suspicious that they were installed well after these legislative safeguards were introduced.
These would have been one of the finest examples of large Georgian sashes in the whole town 😡From the D of D – it was built between 1972-74.
Suffice to say it was speculatively built, being sold on within months of finding a state tenant.A ghastly building – the thankfully not often seen vast elevation to Cathal Brugha St being particularly awful.
An ironic provision if ever you saw one – indeed if one was to follow though on the ‘exceptional’ nature of the circumstance, the new building would be demolished upon the death or moving on of the infirm person from the existing house.
Of course that is a ludicrous suggestion but I think it reflects the nature of the problem we have, the very heart of the issue: the fact that – as Emer O’Siochru pointed out today – this is a quick-fix solution to a short-term economic problem, but the impact of which will affect the appearace of the landscape, the cost of services and utilities, and the country’s environment for centuries to come.
If this type of development had been pursued 50 years ago in Ireland, I think we’d be kicking ourselves for allowing it to happen. Instead of our current state of affairs being taken as an opportunity, the exact opposite is happening – it is being exploited for political gain.
That’s what annoys me so much about this – the idea that because Fianna Fáil are lucky enough that the landscape hasn’t been overly developed in most places, that now’s the opportunity for them to take advantage of this – ‘it hasn’t been wrecked by someone else yet, so now’s our chance’.
Not that I don’t think other parties would have done excactly the same – everyone bar the Greens it seems is in favour of this, or at least would be if in Govt.Agreed – and the focus on the church as said, should work particularly well – not that it doesn’t already: a very striking building, and well designed for the site.
Poor Daniel 🙁
And a couple of other images below too.
Presumably just to access the statue on top, whatever about chemicals, the scaffolding will have to go all the way up. The plywood cladding will also have the added benefit of protecting workers from the notoriously high winds in the area.
Sigh – what is is with middle-aged women and O’Connell St? Just as I was taking that picture there was a shreek behind me as yet another woman stumbled flat out from the pavement onto the road :rolleyes:
And she just lay there in a heap with juggernauts rumbling by 😮Had to haul her up with the aid of another man and bring a chair over from Bachelors Walk to the median (see Phil, on-street coffee places have their uses 😉 ), where she just sat sunning herself in the morning sunshine in the middle of the busiest crossing in the country!
Her leg was in bits – but we eventually put in a taxi and sent her off, God knows where 😀Another good deed for the day 🙂
Extensive coverage on Radio 1 this morning.
Debate on right now with Pat Kenny. Roche will be on shortly.Yes, all of that 70s stuff littered about should be removed completely.
The trees look very stately and picturesque in front though and should be retained I think.
It’s a pity the railings had to go down – the drama of the building rising out of the ground has been lost 🙁😀
There’d be nothing to whinge about otherwise…Well from tacking the old onto the new to sticking the new onto the old – here’s a wide view of that lovely terrace in Dundalk.
Look at the ghastly ‘restoration’ job just being finished off on the last house. Fair enough if the render needed redoing (is it lime-based?) but the windows??
And they’ve put in Georgian panelled doors instead of Victorian!
This whole terrace has been wrecked by replacement windows, and look at that painted house. The utter ignorance of the owners. This is what I mean about people not looking at their house as an architectural entity. They rarely consider it part of a collective whole – rather ‘this is my patch’ and I can do what I like with it. The roof’s had the builders on it too…You see this sort of inconsiderate practice everywhere. Look at the mess of the terrace now.
I note that the very last house in the terrace with original windows has put in an application for works, which obviously include the windows given the absent one upstairs.
What’s the likelihood of them being restored? Much of Dundalk is now ACA designated, but nothing is mentioned at all on the application, including a supposed lack of protected status…
Good to hear 🙂
The monument restoration project began early this morning – the scaffolding is going up very rapidly around O’Connell Monument at the moment. The hoardings are also being made up on site.
Wish I’d been able to take a picture – all the winged Victories look most bizarre being caged in scaffolding: something of an uneasy look to them, not least with workmen scrambling about next to them 🙂One thing you don’t realise is just how tall this temporary structure is going to be – presumably it’s going to go right up to O’ Connell’s head which is four storeys above the street 😮
You have to host them elsewhere – like Photobucket.com. Suppose it’s not the ideal soloution, as for reference purposes into the future, the account may close down for whatever reason….
So to completely ignore that :), here’s a rather bizarre version of the Burger King sign taken on film – what I originally meant to post. Eloquence features this time – she’s got a very strange white hue to her clothes that doen’t come out that well on-screen. Spooky all the same.
Where is that Castle Roche Paul? Often wondered when reading about it there…
Yes, the granite of the Court House goes all of the way round on both sides. Magnificent!
As for the chimneys – the Victorians may have imitated, but it was the late Georgians who fully developed the intimidating potless chimney – the power stack 🙂
Ah the Imperial – Dundalk’s Liberty Hall. Alas unlike the former, it is an icon of its age for all the wrong reasons.
Seen from miles around, instead of the gothic spires and crenellations of the cathedral romantically gracing the town’s skyline as its sole landmark, one must observe the fight between it and the Imperial’s plant room, disgracefully continuing to be embellished with a host of telecommunications antenae.
It’s going under extensive renovations now – they’ve completely shut down, a la the Shelbourne – albeit in something of a different league 🙂
Yes it does – admittedly it is difficult to work out exactly what shows a lack of interest in the architecture of one’s home, and what just shows poor taste 🙂
But in general I do think that most people do not stand back, quite literally, from their home and view it objectively, as a newcomer to their street or area would, also taking onto account their surroundings etc.
The decorative order of their properties generally seems to be the primary concern, rather than the architecture or structure of the building.I mean a classic is the arched window – why do people insist on botching up a natural curve with a rectangular opening. What is the point of even having a curve?
Okay these are replacement windows – but even in brand new homes where curved windows are installed, they’re fitted out with rectagular opening lights. This is an architectural issue, not just an insignificant decorative matter.
Window design is so important in most of our buildings, and whether it should be the case or not, they are generally the primary architectural feature of interest, yet only too often scant attention is paid to their design, in new builds even more so than period properties: at least with them there is a template to follow.Look at this trash in Dundalk, inserted into a terrace of late 19th century houses – have the people no eyes in their head? Really, this type of blatent ignorance just beggars belief. Even the cheapest of the cheap hinged softwood windows would have looked a million times better than this rubbish.
There is poor taste, and there’s ugly.
But of course it is, it goes without saying – but on the ground, in practice, if all companies refused to install replcement windows into period or listed buildings there wouldn’t be a problem. That’s naturally in an ideal world, but the fact that they’re out promoting and encouraging the practice to gullible consumers makes them the primary culprits on the ground.
I’m sure if homeowners were aware of how well sash windows work when fully operational – how if anything they’re more flexible than modern-day equivalents, can last longer, can be double-glazed if necessary, and perform as well if not better in some instances than the product being promoted to them, not to mention the now-widespread availablity of window restoration/replacement – that they would make the informed decision to avoid these companies, this practice and this material by a mile.
It is frustrating to see them taking people in like this, and wrecking the built environment for the rest of us in the process.As you say Phil, whatever about the legislation, I’d love to hear what the PVC companies are saying – their spin on things. What I’d give to be a fly on the wall in a ‘non-obligation consultation’. Perhaps people here have had first-hand experience of them…
But as for the owners themselves, there’s numerous reasons why windows are taken out.
A lot, if not most people, don’t view their house in an architectural way – they just percieve it as home and don’t look at it objectively, certainly not architecturally.
Maybe the ‘rotton old windows’ have been there since they moved in, drafty, bottom rail rotting, difficult to maintain, the sashes stick or are jammed, and they rattle in the wind.
All of these problems that they may have, combined with a complete ignorance of their architectural merits, just results in people not giving a second throught to their disposal.A lot of people like the fact that their house is ‘old’ but that’s about it – they don’t mind if there’s no period features at all – or at least they look for interior features but utterly ignore the windows – indeed most people probably go into standard red brick terraced houses when house-hunting and think – “oh great, the windows have been ‘done’ ‘”.
At this stage in Ireland, ‘having the windows done’ is just as common a topic of conversation now as house prices and traffic all the rest of it.PVC ompanies are the real ones to blame in this – every single one knows exactly what they are doing when ripping out sashes – every one of them, yet couldn’t give two hoots.
I’d love to see them imbue their mission statements with the ethics of conservation as much as they wave about their ISO9000s in your face :rolleyes:What I’d say nearly for sure anyway is that the inquiring hand of the CC with ACA in the back pocket has had a role in this application.
It reads as uncharacteristically detailed, with an emphasis on exactly what is to be done with the windows – highlighting their present condition, both those that need repair and those that don’t, and that replicas will be necessary in some cases. I very much so doubt that they proposed this all by themselves.It has a whiff of in-depth City Council consulatation, which if the case, must be welcomed.
