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Harold's Cross Park and the Strange Case of the Missing Railings.
dublin |
history and heritage |
news report
Monday April 10, 2006 23:16 by Chris Murray - TaraWatch dotliath at gmail dot com n/a 087-7765289
City Council Removes Victorian Railings in People's Park. Harold's Cross Park celebrated it's centenary in 1994. A plaque commemorates the endowment of the Victorian Park to the people of the Rathmines/Harold's Cross townland. Cllr Mary Frehill performed the dedication ceremony. The park is a protected structure in its whole integrity including the original railings, the promenade ring, the hankerchief tree which commerorates the Women's Laundry strike and the view of the chapel and cemetry at Mount Jerome. The council are not making press or media statements on the issue until tomorrow morning. |
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Jump To Comment: 5 4 3 2 1to allow for the metro plan.
now wher in the city centre will you go for a quiet smoke on a sunny autumn day?
There was once a little church yard, green space in the vicinity of Jervis Street.
Charming little sit-down place, have you seen what they have done there. The green space behind Rathmines Swimming pool is being removed in a new P/P venture and the pool (dublin corporation)
also. The area will be paved and the public baths become privately owned. Not to mention our beloved Eyre Square. The issue of lack of consultation and imposition of a bureaucratically chosen design imposed on people grates. The park at Harold's Cross park is worth preserving in its full integrity and people who use it, from all over Dublin are entitled to that use. Without imposition and interference.
The 2000 Planning Act removed the concept of listed buildings and street furniture from the legislation and introduced the concept of protected structures.
So, if say only the facade of a building was 'listed' in the pre-2000 legislation, now the whole of the building and its curtilage is 'protected' . The curtilage constitutes the historical boundary of the protected structure, in this case, the edge of the park, the railings themselves.
Victorian and Edwardian ironwork are as much part of our heritage as round towers and handball alleys. They probably want to replace it with cheap aluminium which can be painted more easily
Don't listen to the Corpo's bollix about safety measures, there's something afoot here. I wonder what it is?
Anyway, the officials are acting illegally, irrespective of whether or not the park is in the ownership of Dublin City Council. Phone the DCC Conservation Officer Clare Hogan (2223943) and ask her what the fuck is going on. If there's no joy from her, try Donncha Ó Dúlaing, the DCC Heritage Officer.
In Harold's Cross park.
Park Landscape
No Sitting
1894 - 1994
Victorian Railings
Orange And White Tape Everywhere
Because we have more examples of northern European artisan and foundry styles than any other EU state. This isn't because we got more foundry work made, we didn't, nor because ours' was of exceptionally high quality, (often it is not) but simply because we didn't sacrifice it to war efforts.
From the outset of WW2, municipal authorities in the UK and continental Europe engaged in propaganda exercises of stripping street furniture, the idea being to smelt the "excess iron" and make weapons. Of course the metal wasn't good enough or pure enough to make weapons, and the whole thing was a bit of a "psy-op". All over Europe, people hacked down their park railings, street lamps, searched their attics for smeltable iron to hand over to the state and "do their bit to win the war".
Thanks to Eire's neutrality, the Irish people survived on an average of a third ration & calorific intake of their cousins and fellows in the UK but at least they still had secure parks.
Which brings me to the Victorian fixation with securing parks. Most of our common land areas and parks were not created under the Victorian period, it was only then that they had their exact areas defined, being before hand common land and more often than not, following the demarcation of the official "park area", the pleasant spot soon became an exclusive "residents only" play space. Whilst I was resident in Dublin such Victorian classist use and misuse of public collective urban space was still seen in Fitzwilliam's square, where only residents of the surrounding area and Pembroke street and a narrow bit of Leeson street were allowed a key to the railings and thus could fight over the tennis court. & oh so terribly grand they thought themselves...
So there you go.
* 1 reason why Victorian railings are worth preserving.
* 1 reason why Victorian enclosed parks ought be opposed.
= thats balance.
Reclaiming your public space requires thinking about how and by whom it was claimed.