Praxiteles

@jungle wrote:

Since privatisation, Aer Lingus isn’t the national airline, their role is to make a profit.

In fact, their only internal route is Dublin-Shannon and this is just expeiency on their part because the stopover forces them to operate aircraft with otherwise empty seats.

They have a flight that arrives in Amsterdam at 9am. Aside from the immediate return flight, there’s also one back at 8:30pm four days a week. Short of multiple daily flights, you’re not going to get much better than that for connections.

Driving from Amsterdam, you could make Duesseldorf by midday (Give it an hour longer by train). Coming back, you could leave around 4:30 and make the evening flight. A bit short for a day-trip, but I can’t imagine connecting flights doing significantly better, even if their Duesseldorf-Dublin was earlier.

I’d agree that we need more direct flights to Germany. Unfortunately, Ryanair’s 737-800s and Aer Lingus’ A320s are too big and won’t be filled, while Aer Arann’s ATRs don’t really have the range. It would be nice to see an operator at the airport that used Fokker 100s or Embraer 195s, so that those routes that could support maybe 80-100 passengers could be given a chance.

I was not necessarily thinking of Amsterdam in terms of Germany alone: it is a central hub for KLM and as means of getting on to the southern part of the island Amsterdam is important for conmnections from Denmark and Scandanavia; as well as f rom Luxembourg, South Germany and Austria as well as from Milan. Remember, 9am in these parts of the worlis already “sehr Spate”. Connecting from Amsterdam at 10 to anywhere else by 11 means you have a meeting at 12 – and that, for the Germanic, mind is boggling for a business day. Then, by the time you are back in Amsterdam, Aer Lingus are gone too early. If it left at 10 pm, that would help.

As for Fokkers, well nomen est omen! Thay are ear-bangers. I much prefer the BAe alternative which is smoother and much more plesant to fly on.

And from this morning’s quondam Cork Examiner:

01 February 2007

Flight change proves costly for passengers

I HAVE never been happy with Aer Lingus’ decision to stop operating the Dublin-Cork route as this makes travelling to and from Cork so much more difficult.

The airline’s decision to change its flight schedule from Düsseldorf to Dublin makes is virtually impossible to catch the latest Aer Arann flight from Dublin to Cork. Arriving in Dublin at 21:50 — 20 minutes later than before — makes it impossible to catch the 22:30 Aer Arann flight to Cork.

Since the price war only targets the budget traveller, the business passenger is completely left behind. It was the latter who paid airline profits before low-cost airlines arrived. Business people paid astronomical rates for flights, thus allowing the airlines to offer reasonable rates to leisure travellers.

Now we are faced with having to spend three days abroad for a one-day trip to Germany because of the lack of coordinated flight schedules. This is a disgrace. I hope Aer Lingus will reconsider its policy and accommodate those who cannot afford to spend hours, or even nights, at an airport just because they missed the last flight.

Stiofán Schmeitz

Finisk Bridge

Killeagh

Co Cork.

Some further gargoyles from Chartres Cathedral:

Re St Coleman’s Cathedral, Cobh, Co. Cork

Nice to see that the professional acumen of Terry Pender’s submission to An Bord Pleannala on behalf of the Friends of St. Colman’s Cathedral has attracted positive comments: http://honan.ucc.ie/essays.php?essayID=3 .

Indeed, the contarst bewteen the seriousness of the Trustees of the Honal Chapel and the shodiness of those of St. Colman’s Cathedral could not be greater.

Viollet-le-Duc’s article on spires from the theDictionnaire raisonn

St Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, Co. Cork

Another view of the spire during the 1995 restoration work.

@jungle wrote:

I think I’m beginning to see the beginnings of a compromise. I agree that the various councils don’t have enough ambition for Cork. You say that Light Rail isn’t a possibility and sadly the main reason that this is so is because there is nobody in the City or County Council who is pushing it. I suspect that the government might be relatively sympathetic if a strong proposal could be put in place.

As regards attractions in the city, I think that’s where my tourist pass idea has merit. Let people spend E15, but give them free use of public transport and reduced entry to attractions. Then, you start building up the number of tourists and other schemes become more viable. The biggest tragedy is that we aren’t making enough of what we have.

I agree with pass idea but I am just wondering how many tourists will be willing to use some of the manky buses currently on the road courtesy of Bus Eireann? Considerable investment is needed in the fleet!

Here is a picture of St. Colman, the largest bell in Cobh Cathedral and in Ireland, upon deliver under naval escort from the bell foundry in Lougborough in 1915.

A deal was done whereby the Admiral of the Port in Queenstown provided a naval escort for the cargo of bells in return for the use of the spire to hang his new fangeled radio antenna for the duration of the war.

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

Terenure
http://www.irish-architecture.com/buildings_ireland/dublin/terenure/church_interior3_lge.html

Thanks for that!

@samuel j wrote:

I think part of site had houses built on it for pensioners, just below Rcches Row, just off steps that run from Roches row to Church Street.

Do not tell me that it has fallen into the hands of the dreaded Cobh Urban District Council?