O'Connell Street

O'Connell Monument
on O'Connell Street facing O'Connell Bridge

O’Connell Street was previously called Sackville Street. It was renamed in 1924 in honour of Irish “Liberator” and “Great Emancipator” Daniel O’Connell.

Daniel O’Connell (1775-1847) was an political leader who campaigned for the rights of Catholics to be restored after many restrictions under British rule in Ireland, such as the Penal Laws. In 1815, he was challenged to a duel, for not apologizing after criticizing the overwhelmingly-Protestant Dublin Corporation. He mortally wounded his opponent and, horrified at the consequence, paid an allowance to his daughter for the rest of his life.

It took 20 years for the O’Connell monument to be raised. A subscription for it was only started in 1862 and donations came from all over Ireland and abroad.. It’s over 12 metres high and made of bronze, with granite plinth and limestone base. The  Irish sculptor JH Foley worked on it, until his death in 1874. His assistant Thomas Brock had to complete the work: shoes, details on frieze and the 4 winged victories around the plinth. The monument was unveiled, without the winged figures, in 1882 to an enormous crowd of supporters. It was all completed by 1886.

The circular frieze, in the middle part, features more than thirty figures. The Maid of Erin (aka Ireland) is holding the 1829 Act of Catholic Emancipation and is pointing to O’Connell himself - around her feet, the chains are broken. There are a farmer, a bishop with a crosier, a lawyer wearing a wig, other traders and professionals….

The coats of arms are for the 4 traditional provinces of Ireland: 

the red hand of Ulster (the northern part) >

the harp (Leinster), 

the three crowns (Munster) – unfortunately barriers stopped me from taking  a picture of the fourth one (Connaught). 

The winged figures are representations of O’Connell’s virtues: Patriotism, Courage, Fidelity (with a dog, an Irish Wolfhound, at her feet), Eloquence (with paperwork on her lap). They bear bullet marks from the war of independence.

The statue of Daniel O’Connell at the top is 3.6 metres high.

The monument was restored in 2005.

O’Connell Street is half a kilometre long. Its width is 49 metres at the southern end, 3 metres wider than at the northern end.

Although designed in the 18^th century and redeveloped in the early 19^th to become one of the grandest avenues in Europe, most of the buildings date from the 1920s and 1930s, due to the bombardment and fighting during the 1916 Easter Rising which led to the War of Independence. There was then more fighting and destruction in 1922 during the Irish Civil War.

Lower O’Connell Street still has a few neoclassical buildings in the 1918-23 reconstruction period. They are made of Irish granite, limestone, red brick and Portland stone with copper domes and cupolas.

Unfortunately, in the 1970s and 1980s, bad planning regulations made it possible for historic buildings to be demolished and many tacky outlets to take over.

The Spire of Dublin

Since the late 1990s, the City Council has worked to restrain this tendency and O’Connell Street is now an Architectural Conservation Area and an Area of Special Planning Control. Major work started in 2002: the pavements to each side were widened, while the wide middle footpath has been narrowed, the 3 lanes of vehicular traffic, each way, have been reduced to 2 lanes each way, plane trees have been removed and replaced by other species.

Although all that work was finished, there is currently more road works to add a line for the tram.

The tram network is called Luas, which means “speed” in Irish. It has been operational In Dublin since 2004, but so far there were only two routes. The tram on O’Connell Street will only travel in one direction.

There had been tramways here from the mid-19th century until 1949, run by a company whose logo was nicknamed 

The Flying Snail 😊

O’Connell Bridge and Street, circa 1900: 

the white statue of William Smith O’Brien in its original place, 

the double-decker trams, Nelson’s Pillar

< Statue of William Smith O’Brien (1803-64) Irish Member of Parliament, deported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) for sedition, later pardoned. He encouraged the use of the Irish language. (Monument: 1870)

>

Statue of Sir John Gray (1815-75) Irish physician, newspaper owner, Member of Parliament. Nationalist, he supported O’Connell and Parnell. He is saluted for the completion of a water reservoir that helped bring clean water to the city. (Monument: 1879, white Sicilian marble)

The GPO, Jim Larkin, The Spire

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Statue of Jim Larkin (1874-1947) trade unionist. James Larkin has been the subjects of poems, songs and other writings. The year of birth on the plinth was changed from “1876” although many sources still quote it differently. (Monument 1980: bronze by Oisín Kelly)

The other renowned statue on O’Connell Street is the 1911 monument to, probably, the most influential Irish Member of Parliament, Charles Parnell - at the northern end, with a tall obelisk 

(not pictured here).

The GPO and Nelson's Pillar in 1916

The General Post Office (GPO) was seized by Irish rebels during the Easter Rising against the British rulers in 1916. The insurgents proclaimed the Irish Republic but the building was attacked and went on fire. They had to abandon it. In fact, only the façade and portico survived. The rest was rebuilt (1924-29).

The front dates from 1818: neoclassical style, 67 metres in length (granite), portico in Portland stone, statues behind the pediments are Mercury (left), Hibernia/Ireland with a harp (centre), Fidelity with a dog (right).

The area in front of the GPO is now a little plaza, with The Spire of Dublin, on the site of a 36 metre-high column that was topped with a statue of Admiral Nelson, called Nelson’s Pillar (blown up by Republicans in 1966).

The Spire of Dublin, or Monument of Light, is the world’s tallest public artwork. 120 metres high. Stainless steel. Its English architect, Ian Ritchie explained, “The Spire was inspired by the ever-changing light and composition of the Irish skies.” Manufactured in County Waterford. €4 million. Installed in 2003.

3 metres in diameter at the base, only 15 cm at the apex. The cone is in sections, all hollow with tuned mass dampers to ensure aerodynamic stability during a wind storm 

😲

It actually sways gently with the wind.

The surface of the upper part has been shot-peened (blasted with metal) to create roughness so that the light scatters on reflection - “During the day it softly reflect the sky, “ said the architect, so it was grey… 

The lower 10 metres have a mirror polished pattern inspired from the rock strata beneath the site and the shape of DNA’s double helix structure. I recognised it straight away 

😹

At night, the base is gently lit and the tip illuminated. 

<

The statue of James Joyce (1882-1941), by Irish sculptor Marjorie Fitzgibbon, is on North Earl Street.

He now glances at The Spire, where there used to be the 1988 Anna Livia bronze sculpture and water feature. Anna Livia Plurabelle is a character is Joyce’s novel Finnegans Wake, symbolising the River Liffey.

The James Joyce statue shows the writer with a cane. 1990 work: nearly half a century for a tribute!

There are words engraved on the low plinth, but it was busy being used as a bench…

Marjorie Fitzgibbon (born in 1930 in the USA) is also the author of the 1982 bust of James Joyce located in St Stephen’s Green. 

Approaching the airport and the clouds started to clear…

O'Connell Bridge

The Wax Museum

A few photos taken on Westmoreland Street, while walking towards O’Connell Bridge.

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Crowned coats of arms with a lion: the Royal Banner of Scotland. Number 7 Westmoreland Street is the result of an architectural competition, to house the Northern Fire and Life Assurance Company (assurance company from Aberdeen in Scotland). The building was designed in 1886 “to resemble a French Renaissance corner pavilion.”

^ Nice sculpted winged lions as stone supports under the balcony.

What a mix of styles!

< In 1988, a series of 14 bronze plaques called In the Footsteps of Leopold Bloom were embedded in the pavement in Dublin. They follow the route of Bloom as described in Chapter 8 of the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. Though the 1st plaque quotes chapter 7 – it is on Abbey Street a couple of hundred metres from a statue of James Joyce north of the river (see next post).

Artist Robin Buick, art installed as part of the Dublin Millennium celebrations.

Currently, with the work due to the expansion of the tram network, it is difficult to see where the pavement starts and the road begins, but on a traffic island at the southern end of O’Connell Bridge was a 12 x 12 metre section of pedestrian island where Irish sculptor Rachel Joynt had installed some brass footprints (shoes and animal). Partially obstructed at the moment.

But it’s a fun piece of artwork called People's Island (1988).

<
I have been led the wrong path...

From here one can see a five-lantern streetlamp on O’Connell Bridge and so many flag poles and other grey vertical rods that the 120 metre-high Spire of Dublin can hardly be seen.

^ At least the weather stayed nice 😁
None of my photographs have been photoshopped...

The Green Harp flag, a seagull on a streetlamp, The Spire, O’Connell Monument, road works barriers

(more pics of The Spire, O’Connell Monument, seagulls, barriers and streetlamps in the next post)

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O’Connell Bridge is 50 metres wide and therefore slightly larger in width than in length.

The previous Carlisle Bridge was reconstructed, widened and renamed in 1882.

The lamp standards have been restored, the ones on each side of the bridge have 3 lanterns, the ones on the central part of the bridge have 5 lanterns.

Next post: O’Connell Monument and other landmarks on O’Connell Street
http://picturesofdubhlinn.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/oconnell-street.html

Temple Bar & Ha'penny Bridge

Turk's Head Chop House est. 1760 (previously The Parliament Inn) Bar and restaurant

Temple Bar is an old area redeveloped with the tourists in mind, so, avoiding the tourism scam as much as possible, I didn’t explore it in depth.

Although, one has to eat and Temple Bar offers plenty of choices. So I did take a few photos, mostly on Parliament Street.

The Temple Bar area had a completely different feel from when I used to visit Dublin more regularly in the 1990s; I didn’t see many cobbled streets, and no old bookshops or record stores, nor bohemian and alternative outlets, but rather, many sleek places, “pop culture” “cult entertainment,” “galleries,” “cocktail menus,” cafés, expensive food…

This “Cultural Quarter” now includes weekly markets: on Saturday afternoon, the Designer Mart (on Cow’s Lane) and the Food Market  (Meeting House Square); on Saturday and Sunday, the Book Market and music stuff (Temple Bar Square)… so that is where one buys old stuff at premium prices (or “vintage”).

I tried to save on space by taken only one picture of the-nice-shop-front-with-the-reflections-of-the-bicycles-and-the-statue-in-the-window-beside-the-granite-milestone-or-is-it-a-litter-bin-I-don’t-know…

The statue is a small version of a large monument situated on Lower Abbey Street, at the Irish Life Centre (assurance and pension company) – not in Temple Bar (1 km away).

It is called Chariot of Life. It was unveiled in 1982, the year following the death of its author, sculptor Oisín Kelly (born in Dublin). The sculpture is made of copper and bronze and represents Reason controlling Emotions.

< This is the back of Smock Alley Theatre (1662) which was a church between 1885 and 1989 and is now the theatre once more (http://picturesofdubhlinn.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/fishamble-street-christ-church-cathedral.html)

Artwork called Cloud Star Boat Map, below a glass footbridge linking Smock Alley Theatre to the Gaiety School of Acting / National Theatre School of Ireland, on Essex Street West. In 1997, the Irish artist, Grace Weir, had been commissioned to create a piece for the then-new Viking Centre, which closed and has been replaced by Dubliana. The large piece depicts a Viking longboat over a map which mixes nautical chart style with astronomical words such as Andromeda, Orion and Pegasus. I think it’s quite nice. The line drawing was carved into the concrete so it has a textured quality.

To get to O’Connell Bridge (next post), I preferred walking along the river, where the street’s name keeps changing: Wellington Quay, Crampton Quay, Aston Quay.

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This large and unusual looking building on Essex Quay is a protected structure. It is used by a solicitors firm. There are quite a few of them around here, so near the Four Courts.

The building is called Sunlight Chambers. The architect was Englishman Edward Ould. Built in 1899 in Italianate style with wide overhanging eaves. Each level has a different style of window. The medallions/tondos are really nice.

The most surprising features are the colourful friezes. They are illustrating the history of hygiene, although the top one seems to depict various hard jobs (farming, building, boat making) the types that make one very dirty.

The building was originally designed for William Lever (1851-1925) of Lever Brothers, the soap-making company – he had started the business by manufacturing Sunlight Soap.

I am not sure why there was the need for these headquarter offices in Dublin, but when Lever took the Daily Mail to court for libel (about financial manoeuvring), he chose Dubliner Edward Carson (who caused Oscar Wilde to go to jail) as his lawyer and the defence capitulated the day after it all started.

Lever was big on advertising and this façade must have been seen as a marketing tool. I guess Lever also washed his hands of the forced labour used in Africa for getting cheap palm oil…

< Ornate cast iron lamp standard on Grattan Bridge, featuring the mythical half-horse and half-fish hippocampus.

Named after Henry Grattan (1746-1820) an Irish politician., this stone bridge was built in 1755, where the Essex Bridge had collapsed. It was widened in 1872 with cast iron supports and supposedly modelled on Westminster Bridge in London (http://gherkinscall.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/westminster-bridge.html)

I don’t know how many bridges in the world are called Millennium Bridge, but this might be the least eventful one! Installed in December 1999. Steel and concrete. One span pedestrian footbridge. One photo was plenty.

The Millennium Bridge is less than 200 metres from the 211-year-old Ha’penny Bridge.

In 2013, Dublin City Council removed 300 kg of ♥ padlocks off the two footbridges: Ha’penny and Millennium bridges.

Ha’penny Bridge (1816) is a one span footbridge, in cast iron.

First named the Wellington Bridge after the Duke of Wellington who was born in Dublin, it was then known as the Liffey Bridge – which is still its official name in Irish "Droichead na Life".

Ha'penny Bridge, Liberty Hall tower and the dome of Custom House

The bridge was constructed because the ferries used to cross the rivers were considered unsafe, and a toll of half a penny, matching the cost of using the ferry, was put in place for using the bridge. Although that was supposed to be only for 100 years, it lasted until 1919 and the cost had been increased to 1½  pence…

Nowadays, over 20,000 people use the bridge every day. It was dismantled, rebuilt and strengthened by Harland & Wolff of Belfast in 2001 and reopened a few days before Christmas when the foot traffic had been estimated to increase to 300,000…

One of the three lamps is slightly kinked… drunk seagull?