Creative Spaces

If you could catch Ireland or even just Dublin in a moment that tells you almost everything about the cultural, social, economical and physical state of the nation, you’d be doing well to fit it all into just one evening, or indeed a musician’s setlist. An abandoned retail unit built during the boom, the windows taped over with bin-liners, concrete blocks remain exposed, the ceiling unfinished still revealing the service ducts, improvise furniture from beer crates, plywood, and large industrial timber spools for tables dotted with the cheapest off-licence purchases, a few token Christmas decorations, €15 entry with all proceeds to the Simon Community, a more sparse crowd than perhaps otherwise expected because of the arctic weather grasping the country, a somewhat eclectic crowd none-the-less, a crowd of mostly unemployed twenty-somethings thus ‘Young Hearts Run Free,’ the appropriate title for the event, some dancing, some talking, all cheerful and a mesmeric guitarist from West Africa the final warm-up act before folk musician and former Planxty member Dónal Lunny begins.

The venue right on Smithfield Plaza in Dublin has been threatened with transfer to NAMA since February 2009, but in this abandoned retail unit and warehouse leftover from the Celtic Tiger, the Complex promotes innovations in art, theatre, comedy and music for all sections of the community. They describe the abandoned building-site nature of the venue as ‘site-specific’ with all furniture entirely movable – it fits with their ethos of ‘exploring current issues in society and in the local community,’ so in this industrial urban aesthetic there is a contemporary resonance. They run workshops and classes from which their creativity is sourced, incorporating gallery and rehearsal spaces, to produce entirely in-house shows, although they are not limited to that.

This is all part of a new trend that is emerging, not just in Smithfield, but throughout Dublin – that of re-using spaces that were either left behind and not developed during the building-boom, or using those that were developed but turned out to be surplus to requirements. Consider the urban gardens in Dolphin’s Barn, Clougher Road and Cherry Orchard, and in similar vein to the Complex, Block T in the Chinese Markets also in Smithfield. Put Block T together with the Complex, the Lighthouse Cinema, popular bars the Cobblestone and Dice and it seems the vision for Smithfield seems to finally be materialising as it heaves with anticipation on a cold Friday night.

In the past ten years, Smithfield has gone through a rigorous regeneration, with a programme of building work making it among the most densely designed projects in Dublin. There’s a brief glimpse in the Commitments in the 1980s which shows what it used to look like, the chimney doesn’t have the lift or viewing pod, and the new block is a dreary row of council housing, echoes of which remain on the northeast edge of the plaza. There was a vision brought together by a team of designers for a highly active civic space for markets and outdoor concerts, making Smithfield a cultural hive and an exciting new quarter for city. The vision didn’t materialise however, despite sporadic successes such as the traditional horse fair and the seasonal Christmas markets. The activity such a vast urban space required never came, the vacant shop fronts couldn’t even find tenants when things were good, now they stand as headstones for the Celtic Tiger.

But like Temple Bar in the eighties, it is the artisan ventures that seem to thrive in the bad times; economics’ crisis is imagination’s opportunity. Other workshops are dotted around the area setting up a vibrant network and with ease of access to the city centre attracting a culturally rich demographic to Smithfield, there’s a high number of foreign nationals, the traditional working class residents, young professionals and students bringing a attractive urban variety.

Before the West African guitarist began on Saturday night, the music was briefly interrupted to allow Dónal Lunny give an interview. The previously half-attentive crowd now all drew to the side stage, shuffling for space as they tried to catch a glimpse, and importantly some world weary counsel from the words he speaks. The almost shy interviewer breaks the ice, so to speak, by mentioning the unfortunate reason for the small turnout, but then Lunny starts to respond to real questions, he speaks fondly of a recent trip to the World Badhrán Championships in the midlands, he jokes over the west of Ireland being a bad place for badhráns because it’s too damp, and he speaks on technology in a way one may perhaps not expect... a man renown for tradition embraces contemporary technology, he says “it opens the door, there’s still some... iffy stuff, but there can be great music, great possibilities outside of the regular 9-5, watching the clock life...”

On the walk down, a Garda suggested that the fact patrons are permitted to bring their own alcohol is “entirely illegal... but what can you do...” Hard to say really whether he was being entirely genuine or otherwise, he was dealing with some young urban troublemakers in Super-Valu on North Kings Street at the time, so the Complex was of little concern save some polite Saturday night banter. Events like this and similar ones at nearby Block T in the Chinese markets usually get wound up around midnight, and the Gardaí don’t tend to be too slow in ensuring punters move on.

So as that hour approaches, Dónal Lunny looks toward closing his set with a song sung as gaeilge and something a little faster to leave the crowd wanting more. You wonder whether a larger, warmer, or dare one day it rural, crowd would be more inclined to dancing like those few to the side of the stage, but very few actually do despite their attentiveness. The soft ballad sang in Irish has a resonance with the warm-up act’s west African song, they lyrics of both inevitably lost on this audience but then that’s not like it mattered, for these performances were about music, less so about poetry, they were about tradition, two very different ones, finding some shared leftover space in contemporary Ireland and holding an audience there.

When the music stops, that crowd loiter inside around the industrial timber spools finishing the last of their drinks, keeping close to the heaters, fearful of the delicate walk home on the black ice on the footpaths. They eventually fall out on to the freezing cold Smithfield Plaza, there’s no one hanging around the Lighthouse or anywhere close, it’s too cold with snow covering the square and freezing fog echoing up around the old chimney, over to the council accommodation and the Cobblestone up to the north-east edge. That’s where the trendy people who weren’t dancing will perhaps go, if not then maybe to nearby Dice Bar or Sin É, but regardless for bravely into the cold urban night they disperse until next time...

Little to do

The 1980s on Dublin’s northside, dole queues leak onto shabby streets, friends enjoy banter in waiting in line, and in their endless supply of free time, their chat concerns their dreams, for one, dissatisfied with the music Ireland is producing, they could be ‘the blacks of Ireland,’ and bring soul to Dublin, Jimmy Rabitte has aspirations of the life fandango and from his parents house in the north inner-city he begins to assemble the greatest band in the world. The Commitments showed a happier side of Dublin during a recession which now pales in significance to the current one; it showed the potential for creativity and ambition at a time of hopelessness.

The Commitments are back, and the bad times are too. Dole queues are thronged again. There are contrasts between the different people signing-on; the pain of so many has been well documented, particularly those supporting families, but within the twenty-somethings there is a different atmosphere. They are just out of college, they are well used to doing nothing and surviving on very little money; for many of them the recession will have seen an improvement in their circumstances. They will be the one’s poised, and indeed assigned to the task of rebuilding the country. That is of course, if they decide to stay.

In the 1980s the twenty-somethings were probably less likely to have had a college education. Twenty years ago those twenty-somethings could hardly of anticipated the unprecedented wealth Ireland would enjoy, and even if they did they would be even less likely to believe that the Government who made it happen would then destroy it in two years. But twenty years of free third-level education finds a generation of our best and brightest wasting their expertise in a social welfare office built during the great building boom at the turn of the 21st century.

The social welfare office the Navan Road is bright and airy; here a group of twenty-something friends gather for their monthly sign on, the group connected by a brother and sister and their friends who all happen to live in Dublin 7, all, coincidentally, have surnames that fall between F and J. The second Wednesday of every month has become a sort of social outing for the group.

“We’re like the Commitments, unemployed but living the life fandango,” said Robin Jardine, graduate architect who found just one month’s work in an architect’s since graduating and has now turned his attention to producing cider as alternative to a profession in which there is up to 70% unemployment. He hopes to turn a hobby into a career by becoming a craft brewer; he collects free apples from an orchard on the grounds of UCD, and is currently producing the cider at a farmhouse just outside Graigenamana in County Kilkenny with another unemployed friend who lives there, he himself a musician on his third album.

Robin’s sister Jacinta, Heather Gray and Carl Giffney are all artists; they all graduated from NCAD in the last two years and see the limited potential in finding a job as the opportune time to further their artistic inclinations. It has often been the case that it is in recessions that creativity will flourish.

Rather than languish in dole queues though, there is another option, an option the Irish have traditionally excelled at. Three of those spoken to approached FÁS with a view to up-skilling were asked if they had considered emigrating. Many graduates want to stay, or at least leave on their own terms but decision to stay, it appears, is the harder choice to make.

For Ann-Marie Fallon another graduate architect, it seems the time has come and, having waited two years already, will not waiting any longer. She has an interview with a recruitment agency in London next week. "Apart from everything, I quite like Ireland and never thought I'd see the day I would be abandoning it. I held out so long in the hope things would turn for the better, but I'm regretting that I stayed around as much as I did."

Aside from artisan indulgences, there is further scope for staying put. Kieran Flood who holds a degree in biology from Trinity College Dublin, has been volunteering with the Irish Wildlife Trust for over a year and a half. He undertook a study of the newt population of Ireland as part of his work, and submitted his report this week. “Yeah, I’m enjoying work but I think that by this time next year I’d want to be getting a pay cheque,” he said.

Roisin Grimes who holds a degree in European Studies for the University of Limerick and spent two years working in Canada before unfortunately timing her return for late 2008 is currently volunteering with CityWise, a programme for educating children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds in Dublin. “What I really want to do is change career. I did this to see if I’d like it, I love it, I love working with the kids and I’m hoping to get into St Pat’s next year.”

Before settling for emigration, Ann-Marie Fallon, decided to “do something constructive”, and has up-skilled, including doing an EU certificated Passive House Planners course, but until she does two years work in professional practice, she cannot call herself an architect, “I need to be mentored. I can only call myself an architectural graduate not an architect. I cannot practice, I cannot sign off on construction, I cannot advertise.”

Some of her friends are participating in FÁS’s Work Placement Programme for unemployed graduates; they aren’t in the Navan Road Social Welfare office today because despite still receiving benefit payments, they do not need to sign on each month. The scheme affords graduates the opportunity to gain practical professional experience in their field. As part of the scheme, participants are not paid but can continue to receive welfare payments. Some employers are taking advantage of the scheme however so it’s not something that will be appeal to everybody.

The group of twenty-somethings emerge from the Navan Road social welfare office into a crisp fresh morning, Kieran is going up to the Irish Wildlife Trust’s office in Glasnevin, Robin’s going to go to Graigenama later in the day for the next stage of the cider making process which he hopes will be ready before Christmas, Roisin is going back to do prepare for her class in Ballyfermot tomorrow and the artists will go for midmorning coffee and a trip to Tesco in back in Phibsboro.

Emerging adulthood is the term given to post-pubescence nowadays, a time for dawdling in college and experiential pursuits like joining a band or being an artist or a cider brewer, before settling into a career somewhere closer to thirty. Free of the unfortunate burdens facing those with families and negative equity, the twenty-somethings take the time to experiment and find their way. It’s not their mess, but it is their opportunity.

Leftover Space

The scourge of wasteland is becoming familiar place across the country as the recession continues to unravel. Plenty has already been spoken on the overbearing land greed and waste that was so abundant; the blight of ghost estates, the irresponsible one-of housing, the large building sites abandoned over night, the west coast ravaged by holiday homes, and the ill considered after-thought approach public spaces. That theme echoed at the weekend as abandoned, empty land at Cherrywood cannot be used for a Luas park-and-ride facility because the lands have been taken over by NAMA. However, with blame being apportioned and the wheels of justice seemingly beginning to turn as Jim Kennedy and four former Fianna Fáil councillors were last week charged with corruption, now is the time to question what is to be done with what has been left over.

In the vacuum left by the Celtic Tiger steam train, creativity is afforded the opportunity to germinate. Last weekend, members of the Duffy and Gerbola circuses called on local authorities to turn disused sites in town centres into traditional village greens, creating performance spaces and funfair and festival areas. Tara Gerbola, who runs Circus Gerbola with her husband, Michael, alludes to the land greed that authorities got caught up in. “Once every town had a village green to host events, but councils began closing them in the property boom and selling them off for development,” she said.

In France and England, village greens are seen as intrinsic to community and are specifically designated for performance events. On Cork Street last week, a disused plot brought the excitement of the circus to the inner-city; this the first time in decades the circus was permitted back into Dublin city centre with Booterstown and Kilmainham the closest it had previously been allowed.
Such initiatives require minimal capital to get them started, consider the increasingly popular urban farming initiatives, they simply need space. But in the instance that capital is available, indeed when it is thrust forward by a property developer with some inclinations of an apparent civic duty and plenty of land to do something with it, the potential becomes much more exciting. ‘The Parlour,’ Harry Crosbie’s civic space in front of the newly developed O2 was last week finally given permission to be built. The project was born out of the recession when original plans, like so much else, were abandoned indefinitely, but then Crosbie isn’t one to resign himself to defeat.

Furthermore, on Tuesday, it was reported that Dublin City Council and the Dublin Port Company were considering a proposal by Crosbie to relocate the city’s cruise ship terminal to a site closer to the heart of the city at the East-Link Bridge, he proposed to soften the area in front of it with paving and trees to allow visitors the opportunity to engage the city better – inevitably through his nearby civic space to where the Luas will take them into the city centre.

Primary objectors to the Parlour were Crosbie’s partners in the O2, Live Nation, who argued that the 100 painted shipping containers used to build it will “mask” up to a third of the O2 creating a “severe” impact on the protected structure. As a temporary development, An Bord Pleanála granted permission on that premise and that it would add to the vitality of the area.

Vitality that most would concur is very much required in that part of the city. The question thus is asked, will it work. As is tradition, Dublin’s epicentre is again drifting east, but its social centre still clings to the O’Connell – Grafton Street spine and tentatively reaches toward the new city in brief flirtations for work or concerts. Crosbie ambitiously expects his new civic space to be used to host small concerts, for showing sport on large screens, political rallies and farmers’ markets. Rather suggestive of the circus families’ village green ideals despite being quite peripheral to the established city centre. He says “It will be a low-cost means of injecting some energy into land that is lying idle.” He expects it to me a “mini-Covent Garden,” however Covent Garden lies between Oxford Street and the Strand in the West-End, in the heart of London, not at its edge.

It remains to be seen if it will work, but Crosbie’s been proven right before. In the run-up to the recent Open House exhibition, Pauline Byrne of Treasury Holdings called for education in the area of civic pride to be increased; “The private realm dominates in this country, civic spaces and things in the public realm are seen as leftover. Civic pride needs to be part of our education,” she said. This, of course, ties in with what the circus families are saying; good public spaces have tended to be scarce in Dublin.

We have seen massive endeavour fall to unfortunate failure at the invariably barren Smithfield Plaza, of which similar to the Parlour had been proposed, and tokenism such as the little known outdoor theatre on the grounds of the civic offices at Wood Quay. There have been successes though, despite some anti-social behaviour, particularly on Eden Quay, the boardwalk is hugely popular, and few may remember Temple Bar Square 20years ago when it was merely an underused car park, not least the booksellers, buskers and al-fresco diners who now frequent it.

Dublin still lacks a Trafalgar Square or Place de la Concorde type place to gather however; the Grand Slam heroes had Dawson Street and the 2002 World Cup heroes, not afforded the open-top bus, were shifted to the Phoenix Park on health and safety grounds. The break in the trees at the GPO on O’Connell Street is an attempt, although meagre one, but then that’s all that really could be made at that location without knocking Ann Summers.

So it has to be said, there’s some merit in what Crosbie’s proposing. Here is a committed capitalist, owning swathes of the emerging part Dublin city, some used, some underused, some regularly used, but by some strange qwerk, his developer greed is veiled in laudings of an altruistic inclination. He has shaped much of the Docklands, but has been wise enough to locate public buildings at critical points. He opened the O2 and the Grand Canal Theatre during a recession and regularly packs both; and he beat Dublin City Council to the erection of the Wheel of Dublin beside the O2 on the site where he had originally planned a U2 museum. It seems Crosbie and the circus families at least concur that entertainment is viable way through the recession.

He was also involved in hiring a Pritzker Prize winning architect to design the National Conference Centre, a seemingly valid approach to a building of such importance, however it is over-scaled and built as an infill building with one questionably interesting facade; its execution will incur debate amongst Dubliners for generations. The hope is that the Parlour will be more than something for Dubliners to talk about, but rather somewhere for Dubliners to gather as city dwellers are sporadically supposed to; it’s only temporary and peripheral but its success could at least encourage other wasteland owners to think a little more imaginatively.

Transport 21 – Wonderful Shortcomings

On the surface of it, much of what Transport 21 aspires to is great, but it is fundamentally flawed in so many ways. Do the two existing Luas lines need to link up if, as the Green Party proposes, Metro North is extended south from St Stephen’s Green to connect to the Luas green line at Beechwood station from which point the Luas and Metro trams would share the same tracks, thus connecting the green line to the red line on O’Connell Street, the airport and Swords so negating the need for the BX line in the first place? The RPA yesterday announced they were finalising plans for the BXD line which will ultimately connect to Broombridge, and perhaps one day Finglas, but for now the RPA are planning to spend money on two lines that run the same route, while at the same time digging up at least a third of St Stephen’s Green park, largely so that Metro North can simply turn around. Metro North will happen, the money will eventually come from somewhere, it will take a long time to happen and it will be a good service when it arrives, it’s just a pity the important decisions that can easily be made now are being ignored. The BX line will go ahead, of course, so in conceding defeat my parting shot queries one last detail, that of the proposed route. It will add to an already congested O’Connell Street going north, whereas if both north and south tracks were accommodated on Marlborough Street it would bring some much needed re-activation to that street – although also, owing the acoustic impact of two tram lines, surely hasten the Abbey Theatre’s exodus from its current location (to the GPO we wonder?).

Advisors said 40m trams would be required on the Tallaght Line; the advice was ignored and the RPA have been pushing to expand to that ever since. Wrapping around Dublin Bay, the Dart only has half a catchment area, yet is invariably jammed at rush hour, the capacity of both Luas lines was never going to come close, yet were persisted with anyway. Linking Metro North to the green line would require an extension of platforms on the line, but that is a minimal intervention that would go some way to future-proofing the project. However, simple but important decision making remains aloof from the important people involved in the RPA. A feasibility study of a Luas line from Rathfarnam to Broadstone was undertaken in 2008 and the idea brought no further owing to some negative traffic disruption and problems to do with height clearance, the incline at Christchurch and the previously deemed unsuitable O’Donovan Rossa Bridge. A previous study finding the O’Donovan Rossa Bridge unsuitable surely begs the question why weren’t the two either side of it considered this time or as in the case of the BX line, a new one proposed. The line would’ve connected to the existing Green line at Nutgrove, the proposed Lucan line as well as the high capacity Dart line at Christchurch and potentially Glasnevin/Phibsborough or Broombridge and could’ve gone someway to reducing the need for the number 16 bus, some of which could then be deployed on Quality Bus Corridors elsewhere in the city; alas though it seems to have been abandoned despite being deemed feasible from Nutgrove and Rathfarmam to at least Christchurch. The proposal appears on the Green Party’s policy papers; it might be cynical to suggest the study was done to appease them in Government, but then that might also be the truth.

Why is the Lucan line proposed to terminate on College Green when it is likely plans to extend it to Grand Canal Dock, Ringsend and Poolbeg will be proposed when it is completed? Why was the Port Tunnel built too small for all trucks? How does it take two hours on the Western Rail Corridor to get from Galway to Limerick? Why do Sligo and Mayo people pay the same toll for the M4 when they only get half of what Galway people get? Why is the existing connection between Connolly and Hueston Station under the Phoenix Park not utilised? Why is Metro West not proposed to connect to the Dart at Howth and Dun Laoghaire? And what of integrated transport for Dublin City, the easiest item on that Transport 21 list of ‘things to do’, a pipe-dream surely? Consider the ungainly Loopline Bridge, it met much opposition and stirred controversy for its imposition on the Custom House facade in 1981, and the debate continues well over a hundred years later. Perhaps well-intentioned but ill-considered moves toward transport infrastructure is just our way. But look, it’s not just the public transport powers-that-be that do wonderful things but leave certain baffling shortcomings outstanding? Why did we build two of Europe’s finest sports stadiums and somehow not get the north-end right on either of them? There is sound rationale behind a lot of the decisions, but decisions toward better solutions could easily be made while these projects remain drawings. As to why they are not? It baffles the mind.

The Hunger

It seems begging on the streets of Dublin has reached chronic levels. Some are saying Dublin is going, or indeed has gone to Hell, but complaining that things aren’t the way they used to be anymore tends to be a staple of Irish people. A prominent Dublin charity spending €50,000 a month on food and the Capuchin Day Centre preparing 600meals a day, however, does confirm something of Dublin’s trouble. Walking idly around the city last week, it did seem quite prominent; at the ATM on Saint Stephen’s Green a sunburnt twenty-something lady in a sleeping bag, in the park with stories of needing a bus fare, on Baggot Street hassling smokers outside the pubs, one just beyond the canal at Milanos swimming in his own vomit, Saturday night on Harcourt Street and a flow of luckless men and women hoping to catch people coming out of the night-clubs, on any bridge over the Liffey, Wolfe Tone Park, under the Loop-line on Talbot Street, the list could be as long as Ulysses and the words to describe them might actually enable one to rebuild the city.

Why is the question, with recession the immediate answer. But the ‘why’ still lingers. Might it be said, harshly or otherwise, that being generous is akin to feeding a stray dog. Would they do it if they had no other choice? Would they do it because it had been too long since their last fix of heroin? Would they do it if it didn’t yield some return? Ours is not a country, of course, that turns its back on the hungry but if the problem is as serious as it clearly is, this country ought to be doing more – and that does not mean throwing coins into a styrofoam coffee cup.

Soccer is Dead

Soccer is not dead, and calling it soccer is just the Irish psyche distancing itself from Association Football's 'prissy' nonsense. Last night's Champion's League game showed the side of football you would imagine FIFA should abhor; a master performance in defending yes, but also a display in gamesmanship the game could do without. A Mayo man at the National League Final last weekend was heard describe the referee as prissy, (the Mayo team awol as ever in Croke Park) you'd imagine he'd have had the same opinion of every Inter Milan player on the field in the Nou Camp, but the Gaelic and Association versions of the game are quite different when it comes to acceptable physical contact. Inter Milan were very effective, they came to do a job and did it well. They played ugly! They played 'fairly' - or what FIFA apparently deem fairly! And they played dead whenever a breath of physical contact was made.

Football is not dead; last year the Champions League Final was the most watched sporting event on the planet, for the first time beating the SuperBowl, but despite that football does still need to evaluate is policies on fairness. As Irish men, the pain of 'Hand of Frog' isn't likely to ever to be forgotten, but at least we now sympathise with the English for its prequel. That was debated long and hard, there is a more pressing issue - FIFA does have rules regarding play acting, it calls it 'simulation', but does laregly noting about it, surely, at the very least retrospective yellow cards at the highest level for simulation and blatant play-acting ought to be considered. Maicon's display in the right back corner where he got injured off the pitch and came back on to fall down and stop the game was appalling. Busquet's over-reaction that resulted in Motta's sending off was bad too, but both are tragically commonplace in the game, and what is done at the highest level is what is repeated by the under-10s around the world. Football's popularity is never likely to see a decline, but of its morality FIFA seems indifferent despite its claims.

Crosbie's Dublin

Unashamedly capitalist. Unashamedly optimistic. Unashamedly Dublin. In ‘the current climate’ Harry Crosbie carves his legacy. But what of it? The man was born on Clonliffe Road in Drumcondra, North Dublin and found his destiny down the road; men of this breed don’t tend to talk about destiny though, rather capitalism; Crosbie concerns himself with commercial ambition and veils it in allusions of civic responsibility. In a generation’s time, the kids will look out the river from the Sean O’Casey Bridge and inevitably say “They could have done better.” They being Crosbie and co and their legacy being the architecture they sanctioned.

There are arguments that the Dublin Docklands lack excitement in both urban and social terms; cold hearted glass facades instil passive disinterest as the business gentries move quickly through the wind tunnel, and the low rise, mono-height facade adorning the river where it yawns out to Dublin Bay ought to be taller. Crosbie has at least tried to stifle the mundane, he has plans for the Watchtower skyscraper by ScottTalonWalker on hold, he had wanted to build a 35metre Giant Man that people could walk around inside of, he is about begin a Dublin Eye at the Point Village site along with the due-to-commence Parlour civic space. The latter two projects both born out of the recession when Crosbie’s original plans, along with so many others, got put on indefinite hold. The man is nothing if not resilient. They are those things that haven’t happened (yet) – if he stopped now though he would still have left his mark.

In searching for immortality some will look to art, literature or sporting heroism – it is with architecture and urbanism in Dublin’s Docklands that Crosbie realises his. There are three particular built projects with which his legacy will be written; the refurbished Point Depot, the National Conference Centre at Spencer Dock and the Grand Canal Theatre. With due respect, the man went about his business in seemingly sound manner, though debate will resound over one of those buildings without cessation until some succeeding generation sees fit to knock it.

Crosbie’s ambition was always likely to ensure a world class music venue for the new Point Depot. Architecturally, he’s achieved as good as is possible for a music theatre, and the external facade, somewhat of a faux Tate Modern, is subtle enough with the historical stone and brick to reaffirm itself as the eastern bookend to the city.

Daniel Liebskind’s Grand Canal Theatre is another starcitect crossed off the list for Dublin. Liebskind’s theatre is certainly dramatic, and it along with Martha Schwartz’s landscaping has already become the icon for Grand Canal Dock; it is a drama some architects will abhor but it is a drama that will excite most others about the potential of the craft and thus serves a worthy purpose. As for opening a theatre in the ‘current climate’ Crosbie’s response is as defiant as you’ll have come to expect; "It's a very bad time to be opening a theatre, it's a very bad time to be doing anything," he said speaking to the Irish Independent in November 2009; "If I'm wrong, I'll be losing my own money because we don't get grants, this is capitalism . . . If it sells, we put it on and if it doesn't, we won't.”

Owning as much of the Docklands as he did, Crosbie was always going to play a significant impact in its realisation, the mundane nature of many of the buildings will be acceptable so long as the punctuations offer excitement, in old Dublin they are the spires and industrial chimneys; as the city’s epicentre drifts east public buildings will again punctuate. It is with the most prominent, however, that Crosbie has let his city down. Built with Treasury Holdings and Irish Rail Consortium, the National Conference Centre rises above all but the Beckett Bridge, over scaled and designed as an infill building with a single debatably interesting facade yet surrounded by water on two sides and a Luas line on a third. Employing Irish-American Pritzker Prize winning architect Kevin Roche implies fine intent on the part of the client; alas in urban and architectural terms it fails in every way – save giving Dublin dwellers something else to talk about.

Crosbie has said he “plans to build a better city.” He has done very well, but those kids on the Sean O’Casey Bridge in a generation’s time will be right, They should have done better.

Amateur Terrorist

Michael O’Leary reckons airport authorities should be discriminate in who they search and harass at airport screening stations – this wanderer has inclinations of agreement but warms the fence with some reservation. In (northern hemisphere) summer 2007, I went on holiday to Australia, stopping in Hong Kong on way there and New Zealand and Bangkok on the way back, and by the time the journey was complete back in Dublin around three months later I had carried a knife aboard nine different aircraft. The first three international airports failed to notice the knife in my carry-on rucksack before I finally did and wondered how many more would miss it before the end of the trip – they all did, eight different international airports, including terrorist bullseye London Heathrow twice; the others Dublin, Hong Kong, Cairns, Brisbane, Auckland, Sydney, and Bangkok. This despite the ridiculous set-up at Bangkok airport where one could buy duty free aftershave before the having it confiscated at security screen which cannot be passed beforehand. The knife, a simple craft knife used for topping pencils and cutting cardboard, perhaps not the most dangerous of weapons, but what we are led to believe was used by the September 11th hijackers.

Do the governments want to keep us scared? Is it not in their political interest to be keeping us happy instead? Is taking tweezers and knitting needles off eighty-year-old nuns going to stop aircraft hijackings? Would discriminate passenger screening speed-up movement through an airport? Yes, in likelihood, but wouldn’t it further antagonise a particular people, the extremists of which who you simply cannot talk sense to, and make them more likely to blow up a train which has no security screening. It begs the age old question, can we not just all get along, but then that question would hardly be ‘age old’ if the answer was ever yes. Antagonism and bad people are the cruel unfortunate nature of society. Fear, the rule of law, vigilantism and ‘ah sure what can ya do!’ are the instrumental attitudes we have defend it – craft knives alone won’t save/destroy the world, so chose your weapon.

Sssh... Religion

That thing twenty-somethings only talk about when it’s getting close to sunrise at the shallow end of bottle of vodka. That thing the Irish mammies hold dear. That thing the small town gentries do because they know they’re supposed to. That thing young parents do because Catholic schools are the better option. That thing kids do because their parents tell them to. Is the world better for its existence? Probably? Possibly? Potentially? Yes? No? That thing people do because it gives them hope, happiness, charity, community, and some form of answer. That thing people don’t do because of corruption, paedophile protection and jihads.

Stephen Hawkins said that "the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws." Charles Darwin said we evolved from apes. Sarah Palin holds that the Genesis story of the creation of man and the universe over the course of seven days should be taught as fact in schools. Clearly, the Adam and Eve story could not be considered fact by most level-headed individuals but ought to be considered simply as the story it is – a story about the first ever instance of free will and the agricultural revolution, that moment where knowledge became man’s weapon for survival, a metaphor of women cultivating fruit and vegetables while the men hunted, and if the God and serpent characters are removed, enough substance would probably remain for the story to still work.

At this time every year there is the usual talk on Irish radio about the pubs being closed on Good Friday, the ways around the law like moving trains, private clubs, airports and the emerging tradition of Good Friday barbeques, along with talk of the law being out of date and ‘why should the government decide what I can and can’t do’. Two years ago, Irish Hoteliers declared that Easter should be the same day every year because it was too close to Saint Patrick’s Day for people to take two weekends away – the Vatican were found to be deaf in one ear and not listening with the other. This year Limerick, suffering more than most in the depths of the recession, ‘need’ their pubs open on Good Friday because there’s a Munster-Leinster game on, due course will find how hard of hearing the Irish courts are. Staunch atheists will give up sweets and crisps for Lent because they’re trying to lose weight. Some will ask why the church decided we can start eating meat on Fridays when we weren’t allowed before and give out about it for a while, and they’re probably entitled to – the Catholic Church have done plenty of such similar things.

The problem isn’t the faith or the religion itself as such, religions invariably teach love, compassion, forgiveness and respect for your neighbour, the problem for religion is the men who organise it – all of them are inherently lent to the corruption brought on by the trappings of power. Most organisations in Ireland, indeed around the world will be found corrupt if they last long enough, banks, multinational conglomerates, sporting groups, charities, volunteer agencies, law enforcement and especially governments, so why not organised religions as well. Yes there are a lot of things wrong with religion, but there is also plenty of good in them too. Whether you sip a beer with a rump steak on Good Friday or kiss the cross at three o’clock and go home for some Donegal Catch instead is your own decision, the government won’t decide that, no atheist can prove he, ahem He doesn’t exist just as no believer can prove He does (although Catholics will point to their miracles,) so enjoy whichever and don’t get belligerent about it either way.

Populace Inclinations

Two teenage lads get on the Dart at Blackrock station, the talk Leinster schools rugby from there to Grand Canal Dock whereon one remarks “What is that cool building over there anyway?” and “Dunno, but it’s cool though!” the response; the building not immediately visible from the Dart station, but they clearly referring to Liebskind’s under construction Grand Canal Theatre. The Liebskind aesthetic perhaps debateable in architecture circles, but if debate (or indeed concurrence here) is sparked by two otherwise-indifferent-to-architecture schoolboys, does it not thus serve a worthy purpose. Lads of this age and aspiration will be inclined to the skin-deep beauty of Miss Ireland auditionees and will inevitably be seduced by Liebskinds, Gehrys and Hadids; their aesthetic ascribes to populace attention and maintains a needed interest in architecture, but what of those involved in the field, he sitting opposite the two lads for instance; our aesthetic fancies, be they architectural or otherwise, are inclined in specific directions and carefully crafted in the school in which we are taught. Our educated concern will be function and form, our assumed taste will consider the aesthetic with the verdict in this instance perhaps ‘acceptable’ because it is relatively hidden and doesn’t overbear as the Conference Centre does.

Who among us didn’t design a daft building in first year? First years, don’t worry if you’ve been asked to design some rowing club pavilion and you just do an upside-down boat, this eegit did a circus tent for a yoga room! But such is first year, preconceptions will be misconceptions and concepts inevitably too literal, and what would Gehry have done in first year other than crunch up some butter paper and arrive at his one-trick-pony epiphany. Aesthetic, of course, is subjectively considered in the eye of the beholder, in architectural cliché it ought to follow function but will there be sufficient concern over aesthetic if functionality is sound? And what of the reverse? Don’t we need ugly things so as to appreciate beautiful ones? Check www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com for further information. Do we need starchitect spaceship buildings to maintain a populace interest in architecture? Or will really bad ones like the National Conference Centre realise the same end? Will someone ever gracefully demolish Hawkins House? Will mock-Georgian windows continue to be employed in picked-from-a-book one-off houses on the ever spoiling landscape of west Mayo where Georgian gentries would have only gone to if they took a wrong turn on the way to hell? Can populace inclinations be leant to our learned tendencies? Hardly likely. We can but persist with their education.

The Shed - Howl in the Hole

Many will have missed the Shed on the first take, never mind a double; its establishment as Dublin's newest road-less-taken venue was shortlived, but gracefully brilliant in its brevity. Billed as 'a private workspace aimed to experiment new participative and creative ways to socialize and communicate through the arts', it certainly delivered before the fun police called a halt an hour early due to health and safety or fire regulations or some other fun-inhibitor. They the two dressed in shirt and ties not seeming they belonged, certainly not seeming they enjoyed creativity, and checking their watches wondering how long a piece in experimental music might go on for. Though for all else it was what one might have hoped for from any one night stand.

The Shed is just a shed, a backstreet dead-end alley, exposed concrete blockwork, timber trusses and corrugated-iron roofing, a large room scattered with paint cans, pieces of timber, and on Thursday a clutter of artisans and patrons, some installation art and video projection and the before mentioned experimental musicry. The art concerned an installation by Amy O'Meara called 'Slow Children', a physical performance by Lorna O'Neil (which this blogger unfortunately missed), and music by Colin Wright and Rory Grubb. I've attended a number or Grubb's acoustic setlists before, tonight was very much more about his experimental inclinations. He rounded out the night by taking us on somewhat of a journey, creating meandering loop-based electro-acoustic sounds from various instruments and objects to a crescendo wherein he used all five-hundred songs on his keyboard (including machine guns and screaming ladies) as well as his guitar and bicycle wheel, which itself he found three ways to make music from - a true epic of a music piece.

For its first and only night, the Shed with its debut 'Howl in the Hole' was a wonderful success fusing art with raw urbanism, the north-inner city today perhaps among the less likely places to have found it, Henrietta Lane just off Bolton Street, the Kings Inn pub even less unlikely for such an after pary when it more accustomed to Racing Post readers, naive trainee barristers and the engineering boys of the DIT. In any event, a great pity the Shed ceased to exist as soon as it was born, though its curator did promise its re-realisation in some other form - the art will find a way, in the interim however check http://aroomforimprovement.com/thith for a taste of what you inevitably missed.

Carpe Diem

Escape the trappings of nostalgia and a prospect waiting room, the inglorious unfolding rhythm of the space-time continuum, linear in presumption, lost in all reality, clear in all clarity, indignant disparity, now is dreaming, tomorrow is nothing if today is found unravelling, undulating, inundating, scream liberating the throws of winter’s melancholy, spring’s zoology, summer’s psychology and autumn’s withering, philanthropic philosophies, lonesome day wholesome day someday a while away...

Eviction

Consider 1845, a hard up British landlord teasing the last of a helpless Connemara family's worth to feed social extravagances in London, consider him sending in the sheriff on Her Majesty's errand, consider the smell of the burning thatch, women wailing on the barren roadside, the men threatening obscenities, and the scramble of anyone able off of this God forsaken island.

Consider 2010, a hard up banking CEO teasing the last of a helpless Clondalkin family's worth to feed his already fat bonuses, consider the arrogant sheriff yielding to the Free State, the smell of negative equity, a baby's soiled nappy, a five-year old's lunch box and a mother's kitchen, the men shout shenanigans, they all shout rescue plans, and anyone able may note a discrepancy in the migration trend but sees it reassert its 160-year inclination as a low-fare flight takes them somewhere off this God forsaken island.

Might the Beatles have been Irish? Might JFK have been Taoiseach? Wayne Rooney an inter-county hurler? Was it for this the Wild Geese fled? Success somewhere else for it'll only be begrudged here? There was a time the island at the edge of Europe was the forerunner of modern technology; as the continent dealt with the plague, it was Ireland who helped guide her back to the light a thousand years ago. Now we put Intel in their computers and Viagra in their... Ahem, some immigrants are leaving, and our own emigrants are going too, if only someone might shout stop we could spare a generation having to go off and fight for Troy and taking the long way home.