GregF

Ah…..sure as it’s in place we’ll give it a chance, despite is’s slight awkwardness and cumbersome look. I’ve seen the public use it already which can’t be bad. Everything new for the city always gets it’s fair amount of criticism at the debut stage. Travelling home on the bus along the quays one could always here the comments of the general public saying ‘is’nt that bleedin stupit’… ‘what a waste of money’…..’and all the homeless’ but after a while sure it will be part ot the city’s furniture and no one will care to notice. Anyway what have we got already to compare it to……nothing, like most other new projects for the city. Temple Bar, Smithfield etc…and the new upgrading of O’Connell Street can only be seen really as a plus despite their somewhat quirky flaws. It will be all grand in the end when everything is finished……wait and see!

The soil of the Spencer Dock site has to be decontaminated as well which is probably what they are doing at the moment. Nobody remembers all the hoo-haa by the local residents and Dermot Desmond that time at the inquest at the Gresham.

Well good for some but most folks who claim to be of the ‘auld sod’ are really a mixture of Celt, Dane, Norman,and Brit; collectively known today as Irish and not having either a word of the auld ancient tongue itself….. begorrah!
People should’nt believe the myths, like religion they are the cause of wars.

Is there really such a thing as a distinct national style, especially when you examine architecture history in general…..is’nt everything copied or borrowed from a commom source. Maybe one could say that there are distinct styles to geographical regions etc….When you get into the business of claiming a distinct national style there is usually a hidden agenda of the facist sort.I mean we here in Ireland have a varied architectural history (although bitty when compared to other countries) and it’s all a product of successive immigration of different peoples throughout the centuries, now is’nt it.

…..To add passage graves and burial sites of the pre Celtic/Celtic sort like that of Newgrange can be found elsewhere in Britain and Europe……it is just that we make a song and dance about it that we tend to think that we are unique…..but maybe it is just as well because with our ignorance and stupidity we would probably have had it bulldozed years ago.

[This message has been edited by GregF (edited 13 December 2000).]

…..but to add too the advertizements you complain of are only temporary (ie the chocolate, box which looks alright to me), however the loopline bridge is a different matter….the advertizements should be removed to reveal this fine Victorian bridge.

How Irish indeed…….but what do you expect when alcohol consumption is the only favourite recreation sport of us all….and besides the ‘pub’ has played a major role in our social history. True!

Hey try looking up Irish soccer grounds, plenty of barns that’s masquerading as stadia.

[This message has been edited by GregF (edited 05 December 2000).]

Please will they ever get their fingers out and get all of these projects rolling. O’ Connell street as we all know is crying out for help. It is a dying lady and a crying shame. Build the Spire, build the mall,upgrade the street and Moore street too. Don’t listen to thatever present section of our society whether Dub or Culchie forever hindering but never offering. Just do it.

I’m familar with Kilmainham as being from Ballyfermot I used to pass through it very regularly on my way to town. It is an area with great potential with the historic ‘Gaol’, courthouse, viking cemetary and Royal Hospital as it’s centre pieces. An appropriate and sympathic development is really needed here. I remember in the late 80’s/early 90’s they reconstructed and enlarged a petrol station/garage right beside the jail and right across the road fom the (Francis Johnston,I think) castle-like entrance to the RHK. Although pratical and needed the petrol station looks misplaced and well…….crap. Only recently too they pulled down a quaint little Victorian-like red brick cottage close by that had been in ruins for years.A proper planning and development system is greatly needed here for the village to blossom at it’s full potential.

I’m all on for green buildings and saving our environment but what constitutes a green building. It’s not just an atrium filled with superficial varities of flora, and fanciful trees is it or a roof garden either. It must comprise of earth friendly or recycled materials must’nt it. No products of heavy industry which scars the land and rapes it of its natural minerals and the products of such, ie steel, glass, plastics,timber cement, etc… All that muck that fills the air. Is it a building that does’nt over produce too much heat so that it inhabitants almost choking to death have to open the windows or invest in expensive air conditioning, thus all that energy lost. It’s not a building either where there’s no natural light omitted in part because the achitect did’nt know what a window was that the electric lighting is on all day. Solar panelling would’nt go down too well here in Ireland …..well there’s the possibility of a wind turbine on the roof. If only we could harness all that energy too of the busy little workers frantically working away….think of all the heat and gasses produced. Those bloody lift shafts too, people should use the stairs and lose some pounds…….and do we need all that water for that loo flush.