Long-time readers of rabble will know we love to draw attention to Dublin’s architecture and great architects past and present. Therefore, when we found out that the IFI were running an event called Dublin Plays Itself alongside the Irish Architecture Foundation, we were definitely interested. Patrick McCusker caught up with Sunniva O’Flynn, one of the tour guides, to find out more.
Another Outpost Gone.
Above: Captured by our man Beggars. The kiosk in all its architectural glory. This tiny hexagonal kiosk out in Ballsbridge is just 37 square feet. It’s about the size of a bathroom in a small gaff. It may be one of Dublin’s smallest buildings, but as Dan Lambert finds out it tells a terrible tale about where our city is going. On the outside it’s undeniably pretty. Sitting neatly on … Read More
The Last Screening.
The telly only had two channels when Eoin O’Mahony left Cork for the Big Smoke. He tells rabble how he tried to hide the whack of Benjy with Gauloises and angsty French fillums in the soon to be demolished Screen Cinema. I had a real fondness for the Screen. When I was rent from the Real Capital of Ireland to Dublin in the late 1980s, the 84 from my far … Read More
Any Moore News?
Above: our man on the ground Fedayn sent us on these shots yesterday. The occupiers were anxious to show that they are keeping well out of the areas under scrutiny in order to avoid damaging the historical structure. Campaigners gathered again yesterday down on Moore St to signal their opposition to whatever development mess is going on in the background. Your feeds are no doubt clogging up … Read More
#lookup: Chq This Out.
Chris McCall takes a look at a free jacks on the North Quays and provides us with a complementary parable on the state we’re in. I found myself on the North Wall during daylight with an hour to kill and a bladder to empty. I decided to look in to the CHQ Building for the craic. There wasn’t any, but at least I didn’t have to pay to use the … Read More
#LookUp: Raising The Standard.
Phibsboro Shopping Centre is one of Dublin’s most domineering buildings. Rashers Tierney writes about the fortress of pre-cast grey concrete that haunts the horizons of D7. One of the advantages of this towering behemoth of late 1960’s brutalist architecture is how it frames the old village of Phibsborough in partnership with the lights of Dalymount. So, it’s near impossible to get lost or misdirect eegits home. You see those … Read More
A Chancery Would Be A Fine Thing.
One of Dublin’s most iconic eyesores has come up for rent. The home of the former tax office at Chancery Place is actually called River House but for most of us its probably referred to with a string of far uglier names. Not everyone pours scorn on the dank looking concrete shell though – the wonderful Built Dublin architecture blog even goes as far to declare a strange grá for the spot. … Read More
#lookUp8: Murray and Sons Tobacco Factory.
Believe it or not, before vaporisers folks used to actually smoke something called tobacco?! Peg Leeson takes a look at a nasty habit, a factory that used to produce it and the women who worked there. Of course we still have folks getting sacked for trying to start unions but hey who chews tobacco anymore?! Look up out the back of the Victoria Train Station, no not the multi-storey atrocity … Read More
[Look Up 4] Panels For Proles
At a protest outside the Dáil one day we found ourselves taking shelter from the rain in that sad-looking square next door. Taking a look about us we saw some extraordinary sculptures that have a certain totalitarian feel and topped off by some kind of Ironman-Michael O’Leary character spewing aircraft across the balcony. We gave Lisa Cassidy a bell, she’s behind the award-winning BuiltDublin.com blog, and asked does she know … Read More
{Urban} The Stiletto In The Ghetto.
A dreary Dublin day on O’Connell Street is never an extraordinary thing: the grey colour of slightly run down buildings, bustling people, a walkway peppered with Jim Larkin, the Virgin Mary, O’Connell, and the odd bit of greenery. Conor Tobin tries to find some meaning in the gigantic metal spike that defiantly rises above them all. No, it is not an antenna, not some steel pylon that you imagined to be … Read More