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Irish Times
18-05-2025
- General
- Irish Times
I have an almost gluttonous appetite for irony, but this is too rich even for my tastes
Last Monday, at about 8am, part of a terrace of Victorian cottages along the Grand Canal in Dublin 6 – properties which have been listed on Dublin City Council's Derelict Sites Register for just under two years, but which had for decades previously been falling into dilapidation – collapsed into the street. It was a warm and sunny morning, and many Dubliners were making their way along that stretch of Canal Road; according to a report in this paper , an eyewitnesses said the falling masonry very narrowly missed a cyclist and a pedestrian walking their dog. It was, it seems fair to say, sheer dumb luck that nobody was killed or seriously injured. Photographs of the property, taken in the immediate aftermath of its collapse, are startling. Almost the entire front of the house has simply fallen into the street, the narrow footpath strewn with rubble and splintered wood. The roof, the whole terrace of which had been entirely covered with plants, has caved in. The building, over many years of total neglect, had simply rotted away and died. Who is responsible for this? In a direct sense, the owner of the building is responsible. And the owner of the building, it turns out, is the Construction Industry Federation , the representative body of the construction industry in Ireland. According to that Irish Times report, the facade of the rotting building had until very recently been concealed by 'a banner advertising a CIF construction safety campaign.' I will freely admit to having an almost gluttonous appetite for irony, but this is a little too rich even for my tastes. It's hard to see this incident as anything other than a lurid symptom of a disease that is eating away at Dublin from the inside. As beautiful as many parts of the city are, and as vibrant as it can be, Dublin's problem with dereliction has become something like a definitional one: there is no experience of the place that is not marred by the fact of its many empty and unpreserved buildings, falling into states of advanced putrefaction. READ MORE The front facade of an unoccupied cottage in Ranelagh has crumbled and fallen onto the street, obstructing a footpath. Video: Dara MacDonaill 'Good puzzle would be to cross Dublin without passing a pub,' Leopold Bloom famously reflected, in Ulysses, of his infamously bibulous hometown. An equally good puzzle, more than a century later, would be to cross Dublin without passing a derelict building. There's barely a street in the city centre that isn't marred by abandonment and dilapidation, by boarded up windows and grubby, peeling facades. [ Dublin's vacant buildings: 'It's my property, I'll do whatever I want with it' Opens in new window ] This is both an aesthetic and an ethical blight on the urban environment, encroaching incrementally and relentlessly on the experience of those living in the city. And it's a clear and insistent indication of poverty: a poverty that arises not out of a lack of money, but a lack of civic pride and responsibility, among both the property-speculating classes and the political establishment. In fact, it's a form of poverty that arises out of people having too much money. It's true, of course, that some buildings remain empty for long periods because their owners are very elderly and living in homes, or because they are languishing in complicated probate, or whatever it might be. But in many, many cases, such dereliction is a choice on the part of property owners who are wealthy enough to let a property sit vacant year after year, blighting and corrupting the urban environment, as the land it sits on steadily accrues value in the context of a housing crisis (or a seller's market, depending on which side of the threshold you're on.) It takes considerable wealth, that is, to make a city feel so impoverished. [ Land hoarders 'laughing' at local authorities as €20.5m owed in unpaid derelict site levies Opens in new window ] All this dereliction, all these residential neighbourhoods with boarded-up houses and shopping streets with dead and dormant retail units, is a result of a totally dysfunctional attitude toward property and property ownership. On the evidence of Dublin's sheer volume of empty buildings – more than 14,500 homes and commercial units vacant for over four years, according to data collected earlier this year by An Post – the State's view of the issue seems to be that, well, it's a shame, of course, but we can't prevent people doing whatever the hell they want with their own property. But this is deeply antisocial behaviour, of a scale and impact of which, typically, only powerful groups are capable. It's antisocial not just in the sense of the destruction of a shared environment (though it is certainly that), but in the sense that it reveals a deeper carelessness about, and disdain for, the experience of fellow citizens. (There are parts of Dublin, as Hugh Linehan forcefully put it in this paper last February, that feel 'like a city designed by people who despise its inhabitants.') [ Derelict Dublin: Too often, it feels like a place designed by people who despise its inhabitants Opens in new window ] For those who are suffering in various ways from this country's housing crisis – the growing number of homeless, the young (and no longer so young) who have lost all hope of owning their own homes, or of living anywhere close to where they work – these derelict properties amount to a profound insult, like watching someone throw out untouched food when you are convulsed by the pain of hunger. As Rory Hearne put it in Gaffs, his book about the housing crisis, this is a 'viscerally pernicious inequality. Those without access to homes can literally touch and see derelict buildings abandoned because the owners have an excess of wealth and property.' But let's say you don't care about that. Let's say, for the sake of argument, you don't care about people who are living on the streets or who can't afford a home. Let's say that you have somehow managed to exist in such a way that no one you know or particularly care about is detrimentally effected by this apparently very wealthy country's confounding inability to provide affordable housing for its citizens. Even then, you've still got to live in the place, haven't you? You've still got to look at the place. And it's dispiriting, day after day, to move through a city so badly disfigured by dereliction, where you're never quite sure whether a gigantic banner bearing a message about construction safety might hide a facade that is about to collapse on top of you, like a hazardously over-stacked metaphor. We should have more respect for our capital city, and for ourselves, than to tolerate this situation, and those who have created it.
Irish Times
09-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Start a new chapter at book-lover's two-bed terrace in Ranelagh for €595,000
Address : 1 Walkers Cottages, Ranelagh, Dublin 6 Price : €595,000 Agent : Young's View this property on One thing that's clear from the piles of books dotted throughout number 1 Walkers Cottages in Ranelagh is that the owner is a voracious reader. One of her favourite things about living here has been that it's equidistant – a 10-minute walk in each direction – between two of her favourite independent bookshops: Alan Hanna's Bookshop in Rathmines and The Company of Books in Ranelagh. Of course, that means it is also walking distance from the various cafes and restaurants in these sought-after Dublin 6 villages, as well as The Hill pub, which is just around the corner, that she says is a great local spot and often hosts live music and quizzes. On a quiet cul-de-sac away from traffic, the end-terrace, two-bedroom home extending to 83sq m (893sq ft) is also well connected to public transport links, with Dublin Buses and an airport bus service available around the corner, as well as the Ranelagh green-line Luas stop just a seven-minute walk away. The owner and her rescue wire fox terrier, Raggy, have lived here since 2022, when it was bought for €500,000, according to the Property Price Register. READ MORE Hallway. Photograph: Viv van der Holst Livingroom. Photograph: Viv van der Holst Raggy lazing by the fire Now that the owner can work remotely, she is moving back to the sunny southeast to live near her family, but she says she will miss the community feel of the area. Number 1 Walkers Cottages is now on the market with Young's Estate Agents, seeking €595,000. A major selling point of this property is that it offers off-street parking with a small east-facing yard to the front. Inside, there is a deep cabinet in the hallway for shoes and coats. There is further storage under the stairs, where there is space for a dryer. The livingroom sits to the right of the hallway, painted in a restful green with an exposed redbrick overmantel and a gas fire. It connects to the dining area of the kitchen/diningroom through a glazed door. The dining area is flooded with light from a roof light and hived off from the kitchen by a breakfast bar. Kitchen. Photograph: Viv van der Holst Dining area. Photograph: Viv van der Holst Main bedroom. Photograph: Viv van der Holst Second bedroom. Photograph: Viv van der Holst Upstairs, the main bedroom and the second smaller double sit to the front of the house. The main bedroom is spacious with plenty of built-in wardrobe space and a narrow balcony that you could fill with plants. The bathroom at the top of the stairs has a bath with a shower attachment; this room would benefit from modernisation. The property's Ber rating is E, so a prospective new owner may want to look into ways to improve that. Nevertheless, this property is likely to attract someone looking to live in a vibrant, sought-after area with a host of amenities on your doorstep and easy access to the city centre.
Irish Times
08-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Five homes on view this week in Dublin and Wicklow from €585,000 to €930,000
18 Dawson Place, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7 €585,000, Remax Built in 2018, this A3-rated two-bedroom, three-bathroom terraced house extending to 94sq m (1,011sq ft) has a separate kitchen and sittingroom that leads out to a small, well-planted garden. Upstairs, the principal bathroom is en suite. The development, which comprises 25 houses, is just off Arbour Hill, within a short walk of Heuston Station and the Phoenix Park. On view: By appointment at Number 63 Gulistan Cottages, Rathmines, Dublin 6 63 Gulistan Cottages, Rathmines, Dublin 6 €675,000, SherryFitzGerald This two-bedroom, one-bathroom, end-terrace cottage is situated just off Mount Pleasant and has been smartly extended to create a broken-plan kitchen/livingroom, the latter opening out to a small but very private terrace with water feature. The C2-rated house extending to 63sq m (676sq ft) has a small utility room and pedestrian side entrance, ideal for bringing bins and bikes in and out. On view: By Appointment at READ MORE Number 2 Serpentine Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 2 Serpentine Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 €745,000, John O'Sullivan Property Consultants This three-bedroom, three-bathroom semi-D has been rented long term and would benefit from a cosmetic refresh. Extending to 89sq m (957sq ft), it has a sittingroom to the front and kitchen/diningroom to the back, off which there is a small rear garden. Upstairs, the E1-rated redbrick has a single and two double bedrooms, one of which is en suite. On view: By appointment at Number 60 Lansdowne Park, Knocklyon, Dublin 16 60 Lansdowne Park, Knocklyon, Dublin 16 €850,000, DNG Just off the Firhouse Road, this small, well-established estate has a large green space that wraps around it. This five-bedroom, two-bathroom semi-D backs on to this green. In need of a cosmetic refresh and extending to 141sq m (1,517sq ft), the house has interconnecting reception rooms which lead through to the kitchen as well as a separate TV room. Three of the five rooms in the C3 Ber-rated property are doubles. On view: By appointment at Number 37 The Avenue, Foggie Field, Bray, Co Wicklow 37 The Avenue, Foggie Field, Bray, Co Wicklow €930,000, Vincent Finnegan Completed last year, this three-storey, four-bedroom, four-bathroom detached house with a car port backs on to Killruddery House and Gardens. You can see its mature trees over the garden wall. On a good-sized plot it also has terraces from the landings on its first and second floors. The A1-rated property extending to 151sq m (1,668sq ft) is fitted with new floors and a new kitchen in an open-plan space that extends the depth of the property. The principal bedroom is on the second floor. On view: By appointment at
