John Callery
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From Maurice Craig’s remarkable book Dublin 1660-1860.
An extract on the remarkable Luke Gardnier.
Page 265.“On June 5th 1798 Lord Mountjoy was killed at the Battle of New Ross. This was the second and (practically) last Luke Gardnier,* a man who deserved better of his country than to die in a civil war on the wrong side. His Catholic Relief Act of 1778 was a landmark, and he had renewed his efforts with success in 1782. He had developed the North Side estate even more rapidly; at the time of his death it had spread along Denmark Street and Gardnier’s place to Mountjoy Square and Great Charles Street, and the half-mile avenue linking the Square with the Custom House had been laid out and partly built. His intention was at first to have the houses on several sides of the Square composed into grandiose elevations with porticoes, pilasters and central domes. But such a scheme was against the sense of the city and was abandoned. Most of the Square, except the east side, was built by 1798, by such craftsmen as Stapleton, William Pemberton and John Russell. Instead of the church that was originally proposed in the middle of the Square, St. George’s was ultimately built in Hardwicke Place, which was also Gardnier territory.â€
* His grandson Luke died at the age of nine.
Jim Barret (Dublin City Architect) did produce a coherent city-wide master-plan !!
You must have blinked as he drew a thick line with a marker on a map of Dublin in parallel with the Liffey and stated the main axis for development of the city proper is now East West.
Maybe Duncan will ask him to produce his marker again and elaborate further on his plan.
Well said Greg and don’t forget the greatest school band of that era “The Ballyfermot De La Salle Boys Band†lead by the one and only Brother Syprion (“Sipoâ€) and the unique Cherry Orchard FC a great school for soccer talent.
Fair play to the Ballyfermot brothers in St. John’s and their massive Primary school (3 fine much needed blocks with their copper roofs), low density !! 50 to a class.
The brothers hit out at times but many a local lad and lads from neighbouring “low density estates†received great encouragement into further education / 3rd level when it was so controlled expensive and seemed beyond reach.
Drogheda is a fine town but give me my own semi-d on Ballyfermot’s rolling Californian Hills over looking the Pheno, river Liffey and only 4 miles from Dublin Town.
Question: How do you knock down old established ( 50 years) fine well built Dublin districts and yet preserve their communities ? Its Cloud Cookoo land stuff it will never happen.
Like the Barcelona version ?
“Where are all the people†missing – because of a lack of the restaurants, small type bars, play areas for kids, seating for senior folk,Frank Gerhy copper fish, rising Arts type hotel etc that can be seen and enjoyed in Barcelona ??
strange!!…. not as much as a word of concern from minister (of national monuments and many other things) Sile De Velera and her department Duchas on Treasury’s spec’ 3 model office blocks (650,000 ft sq) planned to face Duchas’s Kilmainham Gaol where her grandfather Eamon (past President of Ireland) and the only leader to survive execution after the 1916 rebellion was released as its last prisoner in 1922.
The residents of and tourists to Dublin’s historic Kilmainham in the year 2002 would gladly swap the proposal for the flat roofed model office blocks planned to stand opposite Kilmainham Gaol for BQ Enterprise’s good, bad or indifferent 103 bed hotel / tourist development that’s proposed to stand opposite Limerick’s historic King John’s Castle that’s causing so much concern to minister De Velera her department Duchas and the owner of Katy Daly’s pub.
I think this is covered in the archives but no harm of a few additions/reminders:
1. Office block adjacent to Donnybrooke Bus Depot.
2. Park House sitting on its stilts along NCR near Hanlon’s pub (now this is a fine old bar / architectural Victorian gem.)
3. Hawkins House
4. Government (black cladded ,wire fenced / detention centre looking) central computer blocks (2 off) sitting on their stilts – off Memorial Road / Con Colbert Road.
5. Phibsborough shopping centre, Stalinist Architecture at its best.
6. Blooms (Costa del Sol) Hotel and associated balconies also West County Hotel.
7. Wood Quay Bunkers.
8. Ballymun Towers and St. Michael’s Estate. (presently under rejuvenation).
9. Housing in North Clondalkin and Darndale.
10.ILAC Shopping Centre.GregF
Senior MemberPosted 24 November 2000 02:51pm
I’m familar with Kilmainham as being from Ballyfermot I used to pass it very regularly on my way to town. It is an area with great potential with the historic ‘Gaol’, courthouse, viking cemetary and the Royal Hospital as it’s centre pieces. An appropriate and sympathic development is really needed here. I remember in he late 80s/early 90s they constructed 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 practile 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 as its full potential.
Posted 24 November 2000 03:00pm
…..but to add an appropriate and well thought design is needed…no run of the mill sub-urban industrial estate like office blocks or offensive patishe mock-ups.
You don’t know what it looks like then visit http://www.kilmainham-gaol.comand ask would office blocks be allowed as a backdrop to say Edinburgh Castle or to stand in the Place de la Bastille (where once their Jail stood) or 25ft away from the Tower of London – not in a million years. This site in Kilmainham requires a little vision and some thought on its future function and architetural profile.
[This message has been edited by John Callery (edited 22 March 2002).]
An absorbing read (on Dublin’s architecture and street life of the period ) brings me back to the long hot summer of 1995 when I read it for the first time.
Page 88:
“On one occasion the Liberty Boys, driven back as far as Thomas Street, managed to rally their forces and pursue the Ormonde boys to the Broadstone, a distance of nearly a mile. The vanquished were treated with incredible ferocity: the Butchers cut the leg–tendons of the Weavers with their long knives, or the Weavers hoisted the Butchers and left them hanging by their jaws on their own meat-hooks. But they were, it seems, to some extenth respectors of youth and rankâ€
Northside southside rivalry, still continues. Pats v Shells and the 9 points dispute!!
[This message has been edited by John Callery (edited 08 March 2002).]
Claire, please visit Kilmainham via http://www.kilmainham-gaol.com and view just some of the protected structures (of national and international importance)that surround the site directly opposite the Old Gaol on all sides – this site deserves the very best in function and architectural design – these are 3 ordinary (except in scale) model ofice blocks (650,000 ft) planned to dominate /stand in a most extraordinary and unique tourist location in Dublin City.
Its destruction would be akin to the destruction of the Beatles Cavern Club in Liverpool ( no great architectural masterpiece either,but that’s not the point)– which was destroyed in the late 60s but subsequently a mock one was “rebuilt†on the orders of the Liverpool City authorities when the area around the old Cavern site was being developed in the early 80s.
The “new mock Tavern†is now naturally a magnet for thousands of tourists and is high of the list of Liverpool city tour heritage sites – big regrets in Liverpool (now) that the original Cavern was destroyed in the first place.
[This message has been edited by John Callery (edited 16 January 2002).]
[This message has been edited by John Callery (edited 16 January 2002).]
Old pubs going one by one also the Iveagh gone, Daisy gone now the old fishmarket gone- Moore St just hanging in – yet we still have have Tesco’s and Superquinn to bring our foreign friends and tourists to Dublin to show them the last of our old Dublin markets !!
The “Name and Shame†topic first posted on the 16 Nov’ by Rob is very indicative of some of the architectural classics of development that stand in Dublin today and one can only guess at what additional gems would have been added to the list but for groups and individuals voicing their opinions at the pre construction stage.
Also it’s quite puzzling when one thinks that for a nation bigger than Holland in size but of a population of less than 4 million we have chronic traffic problems waste disposal facilities and now the quality of nearly every county council water scheme dimly fails EU standards. We will always have hopefully healthy and rational debate on development of all kinds but the extent of the quality/pollution and lack of action to improve our drinking water supply beggars belief regardless of whether we consider ourselves green or any other colour !!
The worst bars in Dublin without a doubt have been inflicted upon the inhabitants of Tallaght. Tallaght with the same population as Limerick has what only can be described as 10 or so huge drinking ferry type “pubs†/ troughs. They cannot in any sense of the word be described as locals- they are purely designed to print money at the expense of a captive audience. Pints still settling are flung at the customers and it’s a take it or leave it attitude from a barman that you might not see twice in a month.
Take the Belgard Inn – note the word Inn. This huge drinking trough applied to Dublin South Council to build a 5 storey car park adjacent to the mothership “pubâ€. It is a huge dark dank hole and one would have to phone a friend in the place if you had no choice but to meet there. One would need a map to find the toilets and it becomes a huge balling creche (coke and crisps all over the shop) all of Sunday and more TVs than a DID showroom – (with focused heads beaming in different directions depending on which team they follow). And as punters make their way back from the bar through the gauntlet of football supporters its “sorry, sorry excuse me for blocking the viewâ€.
These super subs exist only because of the total publican self interest monopoly on licences and lack of government will to change a so wrong system. You don’t see these drinking ferries along with huge car-parks up North or in Britain because in the UK all one needs to open a pub / obtain a licence is planning permission – thereby every local area has at least a small local or two. I know lads in Tallaght and they cannot wait for the Luas Tram to arrive and swift them away to Dublin 8 and further afield so as to experience a short walk between one pub and the next and enjoy a genuine drinking experience in the remaining fast disappearing genuine Dublin locals.
[This message has been edited by John Callery (edited 03 December 2001).]
Front snug of Mc Dowell’s, Emmet Road, Inchicore right next door to St. Patrick’s Athletic.
Front snug /wee-room of The Glen of Atherlow, Emmet Road, Inchicore right opposite the old VEC now PLC college as designed by a young Andrew Devane(the college that is).
The back snug of the Royal Oak on Old Kilmainham Lane near the Garda station.
Another contender for architectural gem of the 60s must be the tatty Phibsboro shopping centre with its attached office block element which has stood over the south terrace of Dalymount Park, even before Don Givins scored a hat-trick against the mighty Soviet Union and the windows in that awful block rattled to the roar of “The Russians are on the Run”.
Don’t leave of the top of the list the monolithic and cliff-faced “Park House†sitting on its stilts now looming over the Northside village of Stoneybatter and the Victorian dwellings along the North Circular Road for over 30 years. What a greedy built monster this is in its once unique built environment.
[This message has been edited by John Callery (edited 23 November 2001).]
