Sue

Diaspora, there is a very good roundabout just outside Kilkenny, on the Callan road to be precise, which superbly routes all southern traffic away from the city towards Dublin. Admittely it has a lower traffic flow than other well-known junctions, but…

The Walkinstown roundabout has to be Ireland’s worst. At rush hour, it is virtually impassable. Gridlock is a regular occurence. One of the problems is that there are three lanes on some of the approach roads into the roundabout – and there are six busy approach roads going into it. The biggest problem is that, unlike the Red Cow, they can’t put lights on it because there are so many approach roads.

btw, is it true there’s only one roundabout in the whole of America, or is that an urban myth?

Diaspora, how did the government “pull” 63,000 worth of funding exactly? Isn’t it the case that the government agreed a three year funding deal with An Taisce to help it in its role as a prescribed planning body? And isn’t it the case that there were no guarantees after Year 3? Shouldn’t a prudent body have made plans for what would happen after that funding ran out?

Anyway, it’s hardly the taxpayers’ role to fund An Taisce and I think I’d like to see its accounts before coming to any definite conclusions, but these accounts are not available.

I’m worried by you saying that “money might be found” to re-hire these people. This stokes my suspicion that this is all a bit of a PR ruse. The One in Four organisation pulled this “we’re broke and have to go out of business” trick last year and Bono rode to the rescue with 40k, quickly followed by the government with more money to bail it out. Is An Taisce doing something similar?? I really hope not.

Check out last weekend’s Sunday Business Post for some really craven coverage of this proposal. They quoted “sources” as saying that major entertainment corporations were backing the proposal. Clearly the “sources” were Louis Maguire and Owen O’Callaghan. The Irish Indo also acted as cheerleaders for the scam. Shows how you can pull the wool on gullible journalists and get them to hype up even the daftest of projects. But of course Paul Clerkin has already proven how gullible some of these hacks are. I keep expecting Maguire/O’Callaghan to turn around and say they were taking the p too!!

The fountain, last I heard, is in storage in St Anne’s park in Fairview. I think the Corpo is hoping that everybody quietly forgets about it.

They originally wanted to put it beside the garda station in Pearse Street, but the locals kicked up such a fuss that they rapidly backed off that idea. The Croppy acre idea came next, but I don’t think their heart was in it. They need to put it in a place where punters can’t dump rubbish – maybe by railing it off or elevating it. Nobody cares much for it now, apart from Eamon Doherty (wasn’t it?), the architect.

Does it deserve a new berth? I don’t think so. It would be no harm if a few other public monuments about the place were taken down too. Dame Street deserves better than that Thomas Davis statue, for starters.

I think the south side of the Green will go two-way. That will enable motorists to turn right at the end of Harcourt Street – which would make a lot of sense. Right now to get from Harcourt Street to Earlsfort Terrace you have to go all the way around the green – that’s a lot of needless traffic and congestion.

The council is also supposed to be looking at the Bleeding Horse corner, another amazing anomaly. To get from the front door of the pub to the back, you have to drive all the way around a 0.5 mile block

Why this lazy campaign to have the state purchase Lisadell? It’s the easy option every time – get the government to dip into our pockets and buy a property. Why not, for once, let the private sector see what they can do? If there really are two or three private parties interested (and this isn’t just propaganda from the seller), why not let them at it? The planning regulations will stop them doing any stupid. Michael Flatley in Cork has proven that the private sector can do a good job at restoring and conserving part of our national heritage, at no cost to the rest of us.

The state already has enough in its possession – including Farmleigh, which should never have been bought because it has no useful purpose and costs millions to maintain. Adding to its portfolio is not a good idea in these straitened times.

The story with the fountain, according to a council official, is that the wind is blowing the water outside the drainage system – the system having been put there to catch the water. So the water is blowing onto the footpath and the council is promising to deal with that.
The whole thing is modelled on a jet fountain in Paris, apparently. (I bet that one works better) The water is designed to go 1.5 metres in the air, and be caught by the drainage. But they never factored in the wind…

Incidentally here’s a piece on the street furniture situation that appeared in the Sunday Times:

SKATEBOARDERS have struck again. Dublin city council has been forced to remove four granite seats from recently pedestrianised South King Street because the skaters were making such a nuisance of themselves to passers-by.
First the council installed anti- skateboard bars around the already graffiti-covered benches near the Gaiety Theatre. The skateboarders still did their stunts. So the council reluctantly decided to remove the benches, which cost about €10,000, and they are now in storage. “It’s a bad defeat for pedestrianisation,” one council official admitted.

Skateboarders are an increasing menance in cities. Dun Laoghaire and Cork have specific problems, and the Bank of Ireland in Baggot Street, Dublin, is beset by them. The Central Bank had to put a big railing around its building to deter the baseball-cap-backwards brigade. This appears to be the first time that street furniture designed for general use has had to be removed because of the nuisance.

Plans are being discussed to set up dedicated skateboard parks, including one in Lucan — high time for one in Dublin. Once they are in place, skateboarding on streets should be made illegal, with hefty fines for offenders.

What a lot of snobbery. It seems fashionable on this website to take any well-known 1970s or 1980s Irish building and trash it. A shopping centre in the centre of Dublin was never going to be the Pompidou Centre.

How about

Ilac any sense of proportion when it comes to architectural criticism.

Any pix available?