GrahamH

How ridiculous 😀

Strange how it covers two floors too – completely throws the scale of the building, almost like a bit of theme park eye-trickery!
There must be a stairwell there – or maybe there is still a floor division at the base of the fanlight, like those in the White House? 🙂

Yes, it’s an important point to make that there was a threshold of about 6-8 windows in a property in the 1800s anyway, only above which the tax was imposed.
So in fact it wasn’t window tax that caused humble cottages to have such small windows, or for them to have so few, but rather the price of the glass itself which was the real cost. The fact that so many cottages only have two windows to the front and one or two to the rear, well below the limit, serves to demonstrate this.

Glass was made in Ireland Garrett, but it seems the majority of it was imported from Britain – presumably economies of scale kicking in.
Glass was always a prized commodity until about the 1770s when the large Georgian window became as common as muck really – seems to have lost its top-drawer appeal by then what with every Tom Dick and Harry having fashionably large windows installed 🙂
It seems to have been the first time that glass technology really changed architecture, in urban areas at least, and not the 1850s with plate glass as you’d tend to immediately assume.

Though you would have to ask, why did such large crowns only come on stream in the 1770s? Why not much earlier considering that the same method (seems) to have been used for all that time? Did blowers just become more skilled and refine their practices?

I think it is a worthy notion to commemorate on a national level those who died in their attempts to establish this state. There’s FF’s Arbour Hill and Bodenstown events, and the annual remembrance of those who died in the WWs at the Royal Hospital, but is there anything that ‘covers’ the founders of the nation, whatever about 1916?
Not being well enough versed on 1916 to comment on its ‘worthiness’ or otherwise, but at the very least there ought to be a national day of commemoration for all those who lost their lives in attempting to establish independence through the centuries.

To swing this somewhat around to matters architectural, O’Connell Street is of course the perfect location on a host of levels for any such event.
And never in a million years ought the GPO be converted for use as a 1916 museum – what a hokey concept. You can just see the wall-mounted boards stating how ‘this building’ used to be a ‘post office’ in the olden days – till we took it over of course, robbing it of its purpose and place in the city.
There is nothing more civic, more publicly open and welcoming that a General Post Office. For it to be continuing in its same use as it has since 1818, and as in 1916, is the very thing that makes it special.
The idea of the central building in our capital excluding its citizens on a daily basis in favour of drooling tourists is a notion too horrible to contemplate.

As for a potential parade to commemorate 1916, the first thing that comes to mind is its clashing with the St Patrick’s Day Parade. It wouldn’t nearly have the same appeal a mere four weeks after the ‘Big One’, not to mention a festival week to boot…

Hmmm interesting – never noticed them before either, just assuming them to be the marble baubles usually featured.
The crowns seem to be mutlitonal too – though that could just be the dirt 🙂

Archiseek: “modelled on the London head office of Crown Life” – if that says anything…

One of the magnificent heraldic sculptures of the Custom House:

Oh dear – is there the faintest possibility though that the upper facade was removed just to allow for the installation of those I-beams?
The green vitrolite may have worked quite well with Butlers – reminicent of minty chocolate…

Clearly it doesn’t fit in with their sultry ‘traditonal’ image of black timber shopfronts 🙁

The news was shocking, as all car crash incidents are, but especially involving someone that is well known.

Yes the impact of his loss on Mahon may well be significant, both in terms of his own potential contributions, and others’ ability to now hide behind his buried information.

If there is one positive thing to be said about the man and his dealings with the Tribunal, it is his most amiable dealings with the media during his time there. Never one to dash into a blackened car, he seemed to almost enjoy the attention strolling across the Lower Yard every morning and evening, often replying to questions asked – likewise on various programmes.
For all that can be said about Mr Lawlor, the sly CJ ducking and diving method just wasn’t his style – not outside the tribunal stand at least 🙂

:rolleyes:

No doubt if you were wearing a novelty hat with a siren and flashing LEDs they wouldn’t have seen you.

One thing that’s very noticable in Dublin is the level of Chinese people who cycle relative to the ‘natives’. I did a truly gruelling project a couple of years ago, involving standing about in the city centre for hours on end getting various opinions from cyclists. The amount of Chinese cycling was and is extraordinary – they accounted from what I experienced at the time (outside major rush hours) for about 40-50% of all cyclists!

They come from a cycling culture, and evidently think nothing about cycling around Dublin upon arriving here – by contrast Dubliners just don’t do it! It served to demonstrate for me that while yes, there are impediments for many people to taking up the bike in Dublin, there clearly is a cultural issue too given the level of Chinese cycling in exactly the circumstances. We all live in the same city after all – they’re not experiencing anything different to ourselves!

Of course one factor to take on board is that they are for the most part students, so naturally are more inclined to cycle, but even so they pull way above their weight in the cycling population. Even the other day I was watching all the cyclists pouring down from South Richmond St towards Portobello Bridge on the commute home – a considerable number were again Chinese.

Well given a third of the site is going to the RCSI, it’s unlikely the population will increase to any great extent, even with a higher density development…

The Irish Architectural Archive has the most fascinating collection of photographs of ‘Old’ York Street from the 1960s.
A lot were taken by the Dublin Corporation Dangerous Buildings Dept, some by Maurice Craig, and the majority not credited but clearly taken for archival purposes. Unfortunately from what I could make out, all of the pictures were of the northern terrace, i.e. the RSCI side rather than the 1940s terrace side.
It seems all the pictures were taken in anticipation of the northern terrace being demolished c1964, as appreciation of Georgian stock was much greater by then than the 1940s when the southern block was swept away.

The condition of some of the northern houses is truly shocking, but especially the notion that people were still living in these conditions in the 1960s in the very heart of the capital city. One dismal photo from 1962 showed a half landing with a magnificent timber window surround with fluted columns either side, and in front the most squalid conditions with a pail of water on the floor, a Belfast sink in the corner, what seemed to be some sort of wardrobe-like water closet squeezed onto the landing too, and of course all manner of filth and decay all about, with crumbling walls and plaster and the original arched window removed and a square sash put in its place.
Another picture shows what seems to be an entrance hall, with the arch that divides the reception hall from the inner hall half-bricked up with concrete blocks.

Outside the pictures taken by the Corpo were naturally of the worst parts, of barely-holding-together railing plinths and wonky railings, and other more significant structural issues.

Above all though, you could make out what a fine street it once was, maybe as much as 100 years previously. The houses semed to be in the majority c1750-60 in character – the doorcases in particular would remind you of Parnell Sqaure and other Gardiner schemes of the mid-18th century, with a lot of doorcases like this but maybe smaller and bulkier in scale:

Most interestingly though is that there were loads of doorcases as good as identical to those on the opposite side of the street today on these northern houses, the ones that seems to be of concrete:

There were more elaborate versions of the corbelled doors, but definitely not the exact ones – so they seem to have originated on the southern terrace where they are now. What’s particularly sad to see is gothic timber panes in a few of the fanlights, and even in at least one of the half landing windows to the rear 🙁

Reading some bits and pieces from about the place it seems York St was one of the worst, if not the worst tenement area in Dublin in the 1940s, so it’s no wonder the Corpo wanted rid of the southern terrace at least. In one house there were no less than 24 families living in its rooms – and all sharing a single toilet. No doubt conditions improved somewhat by the 1960s, though judging by the half landing pic you’d think otherwise…
There were new-fangled television aerials up on the chimneys anyway, so they had telly at least 🙂

It seems strange that the southern terrace was built to rehouse everyone c1950, yet it was another 12-14 years of utter squalor for the northern terrace before it was pulled down – why the delay?

Does anyone know of the RCSI bought the terrace from the Corpo and then demolish, or did the Corpo clear it themselves with the intention of rebuilding but never realised their plans?

Either way it’s become much clearer as to why the Corpor rebuilt the southern block in a Georgian style – simply because the northern Georgian terrace was to remain standing and in use as tenements for many years to come, hence the character of the street was maintained. Indeed in one pic of the northern terrace, you can just see the brand spanking new southern block in the background 🙂

Hope to go back and try to find some material relating to the all-important southern terrace – it’s due to disappear in a matter of days at this stage 🙁