Another week spent in mostly sunny and hot Dublin. St. Stephen’s Green was again full of people laying about on the perfect grass. It was observed that people in Toronto don’t sit on the grass as much in our parks, and when when they do, they don’t do it in such close proximity to each other. Some of these groups were a little boozy, but it was all rather civilized, and even the kids drinking from tall cans of beer played nice.
This cute miniature garbage truck made it easy to empty the bins. More proof there are small support vehicles available that don’t require cities have unnecessarily wide streets.
A national election was called last Sunday and signs went up overnight on the lamp poles around the city. They are different from Canadian signs in that most of them emphasize the individual much more than the party. Thus (as I overheard on Irish radio), “the city is being watched by giant pasty men.” They seem to add new ones by sliding them up the pole, sometimes 4 or 5 high. In the last photo, they dwarf one of our [murmur] signs (this one).
Apart from the election posters, this one stood out because there isn’t much postering in general in Dublin, but also because I can’t remember the last time I saw pro-choice poster in Canada. Subtle things like this reminded me that this is still very much a Catholic country.
One of many bleak Morrissey-worthy council housing blocks that make it hard to complain ever again about too much concrete in Toronto. Newer schemes are much more gentle and human-friendly. I posted a picture of this block the other day, and you can listen to [murmur] stories that take place in the area here and here.
Guys in white contamination jumpsuits were riding these Segway’s around advertising the sequel to 28 Days Later.
The alley behind O’Connell Street (the main drag) had a nice selection of empty kegs and informative tagging.
Out front on O’Connell there was a demonstration on Saturday in front of the General Post Office (main site of the 1916 Easter Uprising and symbol of Irish nationalism), one of the few things that directly referenced the (not so long ago) old, troubled days — instead there was lots of anticipation of the historic Northern Ireland home rule power sharing that started yesterday.
Lovely abandoned Irish brutalism up the street.
Finally, one of many cozy streets that pass under the central DART train tracks. I’ve long thought the Gardiner in Toronto doesn’t have to be taken down (since it isn’t going anywhere soon), but just needs to be developed underneath. A string of shops along Yonge, Bay, Spadina, Jarvis and etc. would make the urban trail to the lake seamless and pleasant. Nice pillars like this would help too. And Irish dancing shoes.
8 comments
Thank you for such wonderful views, Sean.
Shawn (or Seà ¡n for the duration of your visit) – I think the Westway in London might be a template for the kind of development you’re talking about. See http://www.westway.org for details but also John Lorinc’s Spacing Votes post (http://spacing.ca/votes/?p=131).
Thank you Shawn, this is really a treat! This brings back mostly great memories for me. I stayed in a fantastic hostel right next to/under the DART – I believe I even went to that pub, Molloys? But it’s impossible to say, as there is a pub on every corner. Great comparison to what the Gardiner could be like. (Thanks for the ‘cute’ garbage truck pic too.)
For the bad – I did some rallies with the pro-choice movement when I was in Ireland (although most of my involvement was in Cork) and we had rocks thrown at us. It was the only time I have ever had rocks thrown at me except once by a mean boy who chased me home from school when I was 5. During the women’s day march (I was in Galway for that) we had our candles blown out and asses slapped… but once you’ve had rocks thrown at you, that doesn’t seem so bad.
Mark> Yeah, the Westway is probably closer to the scale of the Gardiner — but I wanted to show this because it’s almost like the overpass doesn’t matter, the city continues as is. The Westway, as far as I can tell (will check it out next month) creates a new kind of (good) space.
What’s the “street furniture” like?
Isn’t pretty much everything smaller and more packed in over there, because it has had to be? Unlike Canada where we have always had tons of space and few people. I think Canadians don’t sit as close to one another because we are used to having so much room to spread out. This doesn’t make it good…we definitely need to take some lessons from places that didn’t have any choice…we’ve consistently made bad choices because we’ve been “able to” due to all our land and resources.
I wonder if the individualized election signs are a result of the Irish proportional representation system – I believe people choose individual candidates from within a slate for each party, so candidates are competing against their fellow party members as well as against other parties, and so need individual recognition. I’m not too sure of the details, though.
The handling of abortion rights by the state leaves an awful lot to be desired – true – but remember refuses to legislate on the back of a referendum where the population voted to allow abortion in the state under certain circumstances. There is a massive lag between the character of the legislator and society, the moral monopoly of the Catholic church passed out the window years ago and this was shown up by more recent outrage at the case of a Miss “D” who the health authorities were refusing to allow a teenager travel out of the jurisdiction for an abortion as is her right (see: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82358).
The lack of political/cultural postering in the city can be put down to a DCC ban on the advertising of public meetings (see: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76227), even as it has been lifted – the penalties for leaving posters up can be pretty steep and really the net has totally augmented how politics are done in the city.
Most of our parks have a purely decorative function – so people really do little else but plop their arses down in them and drink cans with ball games being banned in most of them. Head into Trinity College on the next bright sunny day at around 6pm and witness the glory of hundreds doing just that on a cricket pitch.
If bleak urban housing projects are what you are into then you really missed out on a fine chance to visit the Hotel Ballymun project(see: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/81761) last month. Have you taken a walk up around the Liberties yet (Meath St/Thomas St etc)? It’s really one of the more interesting parts of the city, you’ll probably find the strong working class character of the place with recent art cafes and digital development hubs rather interesting.