GrahamH
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It has always been claimed that the Irish have never had a history of cities or urban areas – and hence simply don’t have a sense of civic pride or an appreciation of what can be achieved with so many people and so much wealth concentrated in such areas – something that I think has more than a grain of truth.
And nowhere is this more evident in Dublin, nearly all of it’s inhabitants seem to belive that we have just ‘inherited’ this Georgian(ish) city, rather than see it as a place that was built by Irish people to be used by mostly Irish people, and has been treated with distain at best and utter contempt at worst as a result.Not that this has anything to do with louts smashing things up today – they’re not exactly loitering around Merrion Square lobbing rocks through windows screaming ‘bloody Brits!’ ‘you and your pretentious Georgiana!’
They just do it because they couldn’t care about anything.
And the National Gallery herd have it too easy as well, experiencing nothing but upper middle class gentility and adoring American tourists, a short stroll over to the Rutland Fountain – and then safely locked up every evening, personal security staff, sweet green grass to enjoy – upon which not one foot has ever stepped, and the distinguished Dargan to watch over them all.
Ah yes, some just don’t appreciate what they have in life.What was so annoying over this, yet again, was the lack of clarity from the Government – will we, won’t we, what do we want it for, will it win us an extra seat in the European Elections….
My greatest shame is never to have been to Castletown, I have to go, I’ve learned so much about it and looked at countless images, yet have never been to the place!
I’ve seen Connolly’s Folly though from the main road and wow!If you stand outside the Jervis Centre or M&S and face Roches, it looks like it has just arrived from outer space, a mammoth bulky cumbersome lump, dazzling white, crashing down onto Henry St – crushing all of the original streetscape on it’s site.
Of course they’re only trying to make it look better – badly – but there is no way on the face of this planet, not even the planet it came from, would such a structure get planning permission today.
Its intrusion onto the streetscape is barely concievible in it’s arrogance, we so often pass it unheeding as it has so long been mere wallpaper, but this ‘facelift’, and seen from the west is makes it absolutely monstrous in scale.
It would appear that the answer for future developments private or social – is to have large grassed areas right next to the apartments, but this in turn may cancel out one of the primary reasons of apartment living – land availablity/high density – so a balance must be struck.
And not everyone can have a home that faces onto an area to keep an eye on their kids, like they would anyway…Again, to generalise is not helping.
First ‘pricks’ were mentioned, now its just ‘prick’.From what I have heard from the private residents, they were’nt saying ‘I pay – therefore etc’ but rather they were annoyed that they were paying the insurance for the area that the children were wrecking, including newly planted trees.
If I were a resident there I’d go loopy too.
And the ‘bargain’ that they bought into was that this was a small ornamental area, primarily in existance to ‘soften’ the hard landscaping of driveways, and access points for the elderly etc.I’m not a prude or a peeping through the nets neighbour, but you can well imagine that you’d be less than pleased yourself to see kids racing around in this small area, through trees & flower beds, and at the same time you having to picking up the tab for insurance, while they all ride off back to mammy at the end, leaving the mess behind.
This has nothing to do with social v private, or being a unique situation, if any of the private residents have children, they are expected to act within the constraints of the way they live also.
Whats really bad about all this though is what a bad advertisment it is for city/apartment living – you could just envisage every mother in the country listening to Liveline (with Derek Davis at the time) in their 3 bed semiS in their sprawling suburbS and thinking –
“Thank God we’re not crammed in like sardines, high in the sky with no gardens or places for the kids to play like those poor unfortunates up in Dublin”I agree, the private residents are just as entitled to have a quiet unspoiled space as the social residents.
To blame either side here is simply silly, it was the fault of the DDDA for not providing adequete facilities – although they claim there is a park suitable for children 2/3 minutes walk away.
This dispute largely arose on Liveline (surprise surprise) and the private residents were battered over the head by PC contributors, claiming that children need fresh air, blah blah blah, how dare pompous yuppie private residents (who spent 250,000+ on apartments) restrict social children’s playtime etc.
This is a simple issue, caused by planners, and no one side of the residents are to blame
(although allowing kids to cycle through shrubbery & flower beds etc stikes me as just not caring about other residents, private or social – an exercise in control over them wouldn’t go amiss)RTE News, where I saw St Vincents didn’t have to go far for the recording, a backbreaking stroll across the road from the broadcasting complex- they could have shot it from the newsroom window!
Malton’s ‘behind the columns’ picture is my favourite, albeit more a classical fantasy-land than Dublin city centre, strewn with horse droppings…
Well after all your encouragement, the posting should be on Geraldine Kennedy’s desk right now, or rather on her sub-editor’s secretary’s secretary’s desk…
I cannot stand Bertie Ahern, his inarticulate ramblings in press conferences alongside Tony Blair make me cringe in mortification, to such an extent that I have to change the channel.
The only positive contibution he appears to have made is describing Spencer Dock as ‘a monstrosity’ which I admit to finding highly amusing.
Take that Harry Crosbie!Theres a reason why the Five Lamps is so notorious, yet I’ve never been able to extract any information from anyone about it.
Is it because of what I think it is…?Its only when you have to use it every day that you really notice things like these.
It drives me nuts every morning, esp after getting off a delayed train.Perhaps the Indo will publish it if I say that Desmond Guinness was the developer behind the proposed demolition of the Georgian townhouse…
I agree whole-heartedly, there is now a geninue interest and dedication in the City Council to the betterment of Dublin City, indeed they almost thrive on rectifying the mistakes of the past.
At last there is a vision in the City Council, with utterly committed staff & planners, although the delays & hitches trail on as always.They could have won and deserved approval for the O’ Connell St plans however – had they enacted them straight away.
And so the only area where they could have earned credit and applause – in initiating the street’s upgrading immediatly – was the very area they utterly failed, work began on the plaza some 5 years and 4 months after the publication of the IAP – in which – rather amusingly the then Lord Mayor stated he hoped to see much of the proposed work ‘carried out by the Millenium’.I was listening on the radio to a repeat of the fiasco surrounding the trees on O’ Connell St, and various City Council officials were defending the decision etc – which is fair enough.
What really annoyed me though was the language used by the same officals about the upgrading of the street – saying things like “It was thought that O’ Cll St had fallen into a delapidated condition” “It was widely accepted that the street was unacceptable as the city’s primary thoroughfare” “We at the City Council decided to to something about it” and blah de blah blah blahNow hang on just a second here, it was virtually exclusively, soley and entirely the fault of the Corporation that the street fell into this condition in the first place!
And whereas it would be entirely unfair to accuse officals today of the mess made, they have nothing short of a hell of a cheek to skirt around the issue of how the place fell into the woeful state it is today, ie Corporation Complacency.It was they who allowed its paving fall into the barely concievable disgusting state it is today.
It was they who stipped the street of the dignity of lamposts by ripping out every single one in favour of floodlights as a more practical solution.
It was they who allowed road traffic to utterly dominate the street for the past 30 years, reaching intolerable levels by the late 90s.
It was they who granted full planning permission in 1982 for the demolition of the last Georgian townhouse on the street, despite it containing some of the finest plasterwork in Ireland, despite it being the last tangible landmark of how the street originally looked, and despite its accociations with Daniel O’ Connell.
It was they who granted full permission for the Eircom office block, one of the ugliest buildings in the city.
It was they who allowed the demolition of Gilbeys, the demolition of the Metropole, and the gross intrusion of CIE and Burgerland buildings.
It was they who sliced the railings off O’ Connell Monument, which would inevitably lead to it being soiled with every type of matter concievable.
It was they who did nothing to impove the vast expanses of dull asphalt and tarmac on it’s carriageways.
It was they who allowed the prevelance of the most disgusting and offensive street furniture including 3rd World standard traffic lights and posts.
It was they who watched without so muchas a twitch as the street was devoured by fast-food joints and takeaways.
And as to whether they had resonsibilty for enacting the Derelict Sites Act upon the owners of the site beside the Carlton, admittedly I don’t know, or resonsibility for whole trees who’s lights were’nt working at Christmas, or whether they granted permission for so many other inappropriate schemes on the street.
It was they – above all however – that breached their policy of O’ Connell Street being a conservation area, a place of ‘major civic design importance’
They threw the street a bit of paving in 1988 as a consession from the scrapheap and left it at that.
As far as they were concerned it was on the Northside, Dublin 1, and the street was too large and too delapidated, and any investor who was willing to ‘put some money into the area’ was given pretty much a free hand to do as they wished.Today, Dublin City Council should not be congratulated for commissioning an IAP, or ‘having the vision’ to execute major refurbishment works – it is, as would be described in the UK as merely ‘the bleedin obvious’
The work they are carrying out is only part of wider objectives to rectify the mess made by the same public body in the past.
Never should present officals be allowed to gloat and boast about the virtues of their current project until they publicly acknowledge that it is largely their own mess they’re cleaning up.But the difference today is that there is now a clear line in the sand as to what is considered ‘historic’ and what is ‘modern’.
The Victorians did not appreciate Georgian townhouses and their classical forms etc largely because they were so overwhelmed in classical tradition themselves, whereas today we are significantly more appreciative due to the evolution of modern forms in the meantime.
It must also be remembered that most Georgian stock by the 19th century was in a less than perfect condition, and were not nearly as adaptable to new uses – or easily upgraded as they are today with our modern comforts.
There is no doubt in the world that so much of Georgian Ireland and Britain was destoyed by Victorian commercial interests, caused largely however through ignorance, they viewed Georgian stock in a similar light to how Victorian buildings were seen by post-war society in the 50s & 60s – old, decrepid & unsuitable for modern living.
