Latest news with #BenjaminBlack
Irish Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Ready to move in: restored Georgian home with basement apartment on Mount Street Upper for €1.5m
Address : 3 Mount Street Upper, Dublin 2 Price : €1,500,000 Agent : Sherry FitzGerald View this property on In his writings, noted Irish author and Booker Prize -winner John Banville notes his aunt's old flat on Upper Mount Street as the inspiration for the setting for his protagonist, Dr Quirke, the fictional pathologist in the crime novels he wrote under the pen name Benjamin Black. He later wrote in the Guardian of the 'dilapidated grandeur' of her flat where 'Yeats's daughter Anne' was a neighbour and Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh was 'a frequenter of the front steps, a vantage from which he could scowl across at the offices of the Dolmen Press, Dublin's leading publishers of poets, though not Kavanagh'. Commenced around 1790, the street was constructed to link the Grand Canal to Merrion Square and Leinster House, and it is noted on the National Built Heritage Service's website that it is 'indicative of [the] piecemeal nature of its construction, that the north side [is] notably less grand than the south'. It also notes that St Stephen's Church provides 'an interesting centrepiece' at the end of the street. Sherry FitzGerald has just launched number 3 Mount Street Upper to the market, which began life back in 1810, having been constructed in a series of four (numbers 1 to 4) residences that sat behind fine cobweb fanlights. Number 3 operated as commercial offices for the past few decades where the likes of accountants, medical services and a language school operated from its 216sq m (2,325sq ft) space. With four floors over a basement, the house has recently been transformed back to a residential unit under the guidance of architect Michael Cullinan of MV Cullinan Architects. READ MORE The property has an impressive cobweb fanlight A kitchen/diningroom on the ground floor The house is well lit thanks to its south-facing aspect Livingroom on the first floor Principal bedroom Its size is important. In comparison to its peers around the corner on Merrion Square, it's a far more manageable space where staff were originally required to run a multitude of rooms in days gone by. Number 3 is three bays wide with a south-facing aspect. 'You [would usually] have to go to the palatial sized homes around the corner to have this feature, so it has all these qualities, but in a much more compact form,' says Cullinan. He describes the staircase that runs over five floors as an 'essential ingredient' to its charm. 'Very few houses in Dublin have a staircase design such as number 3. At the top you have a square stairs, then descending it becomes a helical [curved] stairs ending up as a dog-legged stairs below,' says Cullinan. Kitchen at basement level Now in turnkey condition, all the headaches associated with renovating a protected structure are over, and new technology, such as Gutex insulation, has been fitted, along with lime plaster, to make the house run more efficiently. The house design has incorporated a self-contained apartment at basement level, which could potentially be rented out or used as separate accommodation for a family member. The property now has four bedrooms in total: two on the third floor, the principal on the second and a fourth at basement level. A kitchen and diningroom lie just inside the front hallway with a wonderful well-lit livingroom on the first floor. Thanks to the layout of the returns, the first floor now has a study, while a WC services the kitchen/dining area return. [ Sandymount four-bed with striking sunroom for €2.15m Opens in new window ] Further interest is the fact that the house has three cellars, and these take 'the form of deep arched basements that extend to the middle of the road,' Cullinan says. With vaulted ceilings, one is used as a plant room and one of the others serves as storage for the apartment at basement level. What is on offer here is a medium-sized Georgian residence a stone's throw from Merrion Square that Cullinan describes as 'packing a punch way above its weight' due to its location, three-bay width and, most importantly, its south-facing aspect. Ber-exempt as it is a protected structure, the turnkey house is likely to appeal to those with a love of Georgian architecture in search of a manageable home. Sherry FitzGerald is seeking €1.5 million for the house which has a parking space to the rear and a self-contained basement-level apartment.
The Hindu
26-04-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Alphabet climbs as AI bets drive ad strength, quelling market fears
Alphabet shares jumped about 4% on Friday, after a solid earnings report from the Google parent showed investors that its bold bets on AI were fueling growth in the core advertising business, soothing some concerns around competition and tariff-related pressures. Google's advertising revenue rose a better-than-expected 8.5% in the first quarter, in a welcome respite to investors who were worried that a decline in U.S. ad spending amid global trade tensions could significantly dent the digital ad market. Industry data from early April that showed a sharp pullback in U.S. digital ad spending from Temu and Shein - the biggest advertisers on Google Search in the U.S. - further fanned fears. Meanwhile, reports on cloud computing rivals Amazon and Microsoft scaling back on some data center projects had sparked fears that Big Tech might have been overly aggressive in its AI-related outlays, and rising economic uncertainty could be now forcing companies to rethink their plans. "Against the backdrop of negative sentiment and data checks, regulation woes, competition concerns and macro related fears, Alphabet reported a blow to bears, with... strong growth across all major segments," Deutsche Bank analyst Benjamin Black wrote. While Google noted that the Trump administration's recent trade policy changes would cause a "slight headwind" to its ads business this year, executives did not raise any alarm bells on a broad advertising slowdown. Google's report helped lift social media stocks higher on Friday, with Instagram-parent Meta Platforms up 2% and image-sharing platform Pinterest rising 1%. Snapchat-owner Snap climbed about 3%. After announcing a $70 billion share buyback plan, Alphabet also said AI Overviews - the summaries that appear above traditional hyperlinks to relevant webpages - now have 1.5 billion users per month, within about a year after its launch. "Google is in a race versus OpenAI, Perplexity and others to drive AI usage, and we continue to believe Google has data and distribution advantages and has closed the ... performance gap," brokerage BofA Global Research said. Alphabet's 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio stands at 17.33, trailing Microsoft's 26.56 and Meta's 20.49. The stock has fallen about 16% this year, while Microsoft and Meta have lost some 8% and 9%, respectively. "Perhaps Dr. Google is just what this market needed — a healthy dose of strong fundamental performance," Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik said.
CNA
25-04-2025
- Business
- CNA
Alphabet climbs as AI bets drive ad strength, quelling market fears
Alphabet shares jumped about 4 per cent on Friday, after a solid earnings report from the Google parent showed investors that its bold bets on AI were fueling growth in the core advertising business, soothing some concerns around competition and tariff-related pressures. Google's advertising revenue rose a better-than-expected 8.5 per cent in the first quarter, in a welcome respite to investors who were worried that a decline in U.S. ad spending amid global trade tensions could significantly dent the digital ad market. Industry data from early April that showed a sharp pullback in U.S. digital ad spending from Temu and Shein - the biggest advertisers on Google Search in the U.S. - further fanned fears. Meanwhile, reports on cloud computing rivals Amazon and Microsoft scaling back on some data center projects had sparked fears that Big Tech might have been overly aggressive in its AI-related outlays, and rising economic uncertainty could be now forcing companies to rethink their plans. "Against the backdrop of negative sentiment and data checks, regulation woes, competition concerns and macro related fears, Alphabet reported a blow to bears, with... strong growth across all major segments," Deutsche Bank analyst Benjamin Black wrote. While Google noted that the Trump administration's recent trade policy changes would cause a "slight headwind" to its ads business this year, executives did not raise any alarm bells on a broad advertising slowdown. Google's report helped lift social media stocks higher on Friday, with Instagram-parent Meta Platforms up 2 per cent and image-sharing platform Pinterest rising 1 per cent. Snapchat-owner Snap climbed about 3 per cent. After announcing a $70 billion share buyback plan, Alphabet also said AI Overviews - the summaries that appear above traditional hyperlinks to relevant webpages - now have 1.5 billion users per month, within about a year after its launch. "Google is in a race versus OpenAI, Perplexity and others to drive AI usage, and we continue to believe Google has data and distribution advantages and has closed the ... performance gap," brokerage BofA Global Research said. Alphabet's 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio stands at 17.33, trailing Microsoft's 26.56 and Meta's 20.49. The stock has fallen about 16 per cent this year, while Microsoft and Meta have lost some 8 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively. "Perhaps Dr. Google is just what this market needed — a healthy dose of strong fundamental performance," Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik said.
