The dozers are still rolling in Dublin

YOU WOULD think that the authorities would have learned a lesson. They have made a wilderness. socially and economically of central Dublin. Few live there; few walk around it at night. Security men, dogs and the occasional wino have taken cover. The middle classes have uprooted and gone long ago. The poorer classes are left isolated in their high tenements institutionalised poverty, it is - from Donore Flats, through Fatima, across Cook Street by the barren wastes of Sean MacDermott Street to Summerhill, ending in the world's end of Railway Street and Sheriff Street. There is no one to interact with, no one to employ them. Poverty grows upon poverty, and unemployment grows upon unemployment. 
But, courage! "Urban Renewal", as it has been promoted by our civic, central and financial institutions, has not yet ended. There are still a few small streets which may yetbe blighted: there are still a few people - other than the institutionalised unemployed - who may be squeezed out from working and living near the centre.

Next for the chop therefore is that remnant of a decent urban and civic environment, South Frederick Street, the narrow early Georgian lane that links Nassau Street to Molesworth Street.

Setanta has already renewed the top half, mercifully leaving the bottom (left hand side). Twelve years ago New Ireland the parent of Setanta, built a massive block in a dire style (though the poor architects did their best with greenish mosaic and bronze: charity forbids me to mention them by name) in the top half (right hand side).

They now propose, and have sought permission for the total demolition of what remains on that side and around the corner into Nassau Street as well. They have, of course, been quietly acquiring the ownerships meanwhile.

There are people still living upstairs in some of these houses. There are also offices, and businesses downstairs. If ever the term "fabric of a city's life" meant anything, it means it here. The following is a list of the tenants in the seven Nassau Street houses: a hairdresser, a cleaners', a stationery shop, two toy shops, a hardware store, a paint shop." Upstairs in some there is a solicitor, a dress hire shop and some residential flats.

Apart from being listed for connservation in the City Plan, the eleven houses around the comer in South Frederick Street go like this: the Grafton Dress Academy is in two houses, then the Irish Commercial Travellers and Joe Walsh, then Figgis Rare Books and a solicitor, then Palm Skerrett the artist, then an insurance office with a design outfit in the basement, then Miley & Miley, Solicitors (these last two, by the way, are superb small samples of early Georgian inside) then the Market Research Bureau and some more solicitors, finally a couture shop, an insurance office and an architect before we meet No. 1 - 9, the bleak office of New Ireland itself. How dare they do this with the writing already on the wall for our city. Take a look quickly. This piece of a living city may soon be no more.

Wood Quay: a footnote

In the mid fifties, all of the Wood Quay site from Christ Church to the river was entirely occupied by thriving shops and properties. It was chosen by Dr. M.P. Beausang, an engineer in the Corporation (now long since dead) commpletely without any reference to its archaeological value (although a glance at an ordinance map of the area should have caused one to ponder) but solely because the Corporation occupied two yards there, the Fishamble Street Yard and the Winetavern Street Yard.

Thus great decisions come to be taken. In 1974 they excavated the strip along the river with the intention of building there. This area was cleared and much of it has been carefully examined. Howwever in 1977 they decided that they would build upon the unexcavated area, 'up the hill of Fishamble Street, which of course has not been delved in by the archaeologists. This is the most important part of the whole site but when the scrapers entered there at the end of September they started to remove it in ton bucketfuls and there is now no possibility of examining any of it.