kefu

If Mulligans is the second best pub in the world … what’s the best?

ctesiphon – i’ve never done maam except when the sun is splitting the rocks and it is truly spectacular
as regards terror, nothing in ireland can compare to the mountain roads of the spanish pyrenees and catalonia, where i spent an exhilarating week one time

Best Roads: The Chapelizod Bypass is certainly a masterpiece of road design. The only unfortunate aspect of it is that it has rather cut off the War Memorial Gardens and probably contributes to their low usage.
The M1 is of a consistently high standard, particularly the long subtle bridge over the wetlands in North Dublin, the beehive style toll booths and the Boyne bridge. The N11 through the Glen of the Downs is a very attractive road and has made a joke of the amount of time and energy wasted in protesting against it.
The view from the M50 bridge could be terrific but – for safety reasons presumably – is not capitalised upon.
The M50 interchange at Blanchardstown is also a great piece of engineering, encompassing as it does the railway and canal viaducts.

Worst Roads: There are so many bad roads. But the new Cashel bypass is designed such that you don’t even catch a glimpse of the castle, which is a big loss. Although I doubt the people of Cashel are complaining.

What would people consider Ireland’s most scenic drives. Off the top of my head, three of the best would be Ring of Kerry, Sky Road in Clifden, and Maam Cross in Connemara.

Rustycogs, you’ll find the two people involved probably knew each other so I think you’re safe enough.
The whole of the Bachelor’s Quay boardwalk was cordoned off this afternoon – it actually looked rather fitting.
The Water Unit were also there searching around in the Liffey, which is obviously where the knife ended up.

I don’t approve of it at all and agree with most of what you said. It’s bland but it’s not terrible and is certainly a lot better than its neighbours on Ellis Quay.
This all goes back to the post I made on the last page. I see all of these bland – but not strictly ugly – developments as terrible missed opportunities.
It will probably be another fifty years before we get another crack at the Quays after making such a mess of it this time.
The same goes for the likes of Parnell Street and Mountjoy Square.
Most unfortunately, we’re seeing the exact same thing happening on Capel Street, which in many ways is my favourite street in Dublin.
If people think the Capel Building is bad, the new development diagonally across from it is actually much worse. However, none of them stand comparison with the abominations inflicted on the city in the 1960s.

@StephenC wrote:

Here are some contributions: The Capel Building – Dublin’s latest planning horror
The Laughter Lounge – haha very funny
The Ivy Exchange – check out the latest dross on Parnell Street

Bad and all as these buildings are, I see them more as missed opportunities rather than ugly buildings per se.
I have been endlessly critical of the redevelopment of Parnell Street, but mainly in the sense that it could have been something special considering it has been redone practically from end to end.
Even the worst of all these buildings, the apartment complex next to the Parnell Ilac entrance, isn’t a patch on something like Hawkins House or Apollo House.
The Capel Building would, as said before, be better suited to an out-of-town business park and the Laughter Lounge is just plain boring. Same goes for the Ivy Exchange.

The simple solution is to either get rid of the licencing system or break the current licences down into categories based on size, that is, have small, medium, large, and super licences.
This would quickly stop the practice of taking the licence off a small city centre bar in Co Cork and using it to build a barn pub in Co Dublin.
I agree with Eddie Hobbs arguments about some things relating to licencing. For instance, we all know that the argument linking more licences to increased drinking is completely spurious, not least because it was put forward by the vintners to kill off the cafe bar idea.
But his statistic about how “Dublin has 35% of the population and 9% of the pubs” is a little bit misleading because if you were to work it out on a square footage basis, Dublin would acutally be competing very nicely.
While a rural Irish town might have twelve pubs on its main street, their combined area often wouldn’t make one Cafe En Seine or Zanzibar.
Also, the notion that super-pubs are intrinsically bad is misleading. In Dublin’s more recent suburbs, where there were perhaps no pubs at one stage, large pubs contribute as much to the local community as much, if not more as the small pubs of rural Ireland.
This is my personal experience, where on any given night in the large local suburban pub near where I grew up but where I don’t live now, I might meet half a dozen people from my school days, childhood etc.
If there were twelve different bars instead, that dynamic would disappear.

Daragh, it all seems pretty simple to me because a fast food outlet is not the same as a coffee shop.
If all the McDonalds/Burger Kings/Supermacs on O’C St were replaced by cafes, do you think it would be a “big, dirty, smelly dump”.

If any number of takers could be found, they would have rented the property.
Fortunately, we live in an economy where any business – whatever their nationality – can still set up shop wherever they feel they’re most likely to turn a profit.
I find it quite ironic that Irish arrogance is now such that we want to control exactly what goes where on our city streets. Imagine us telling a major international company twenty years ago: ‘Yeah, we want you but you’ll have to go down the alley because you aren’t classy enough for our main streets.’
It doesn’t happen elsewhere, and that includes cities like Bath and Edinburgh with a far more extensive repertoire of fine buildings and a better preserved core than we have.
And while certain guidelines might be acceptable as a once-off for the regeneration of O’Connell Street or similar efforts in the future, this practice can not apply citywide.
I also really don’t understand how a 10-6pm fashion retailer is somehow better than a 7am-9pm (or later) coffee house where people can sit down and meet.
By the way this argument is going, people are trying to make out coffee shops are akin to McDonalds or sweet shops. They aren’t. Surely, we should welcome anything that is not a pub/newsagents/kebab shop in the greater Temple Bar area.

Dublin would be a lot better with a Starbucks on every corner than it is with the existing Centra/Londis/Spar/off-licence on every corner.
Despite all the bad publicity, they’re actually very civilised places. They always have free newspapers, Internet access, and plenty of seating including couches, as well as later opening hours.
I’m not saying the likes of Insomnia don’t have these things but the notion that Starbucks is as bad as another Centra or another O2 shop is just plain wrong-headed.
I’ve been all over the east coast of America: in Washington, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. And in all three when there’s a Starbucks in an historic building, they use it as an asset.
And what do we mean by downgrading – it’s not like this area has lost restaurants or retailers. Correct me if I’m wrong but was this old Starbucks building not some kind of Eircom store.