Category / Architecture & Urban Design

by shannonchance

Saturday Market in Meeting House Square

We weren’t blessed with the best weather during Patty and Kitty’s visit to Ireland but we did manage to see quite a few sites. We even made it to the Saturday market in downtown Dublin….

Headed to the Saturday market via Liffey Street.
The vendors include cheese makers and bakeries…
…produce and spice vendors…
…butchers and prepared food vendors.
On sunny and rainy days giant umbrellas cover Meeting House Square.
There are also craft vendors… and the shops lining the street betwen Meeting House Square and Cow’s Lane are also enticing.
by shannonchance

Four Courts by Night

Ireland’s Four Courts building is so photogenic. The River Liffey sparkles with its reflections at night.  How I love this place!

View west toward Four Courts.
When the building was being re-built after it was damaged in a rebellion, the architect lifted the dome on top of a drum to emphasize it and make it more visible.
View toward St. Paul’s @ Smithfield.
View east toward Four Courts.
by shannonchance

The Elegant Archeology Museum of Ireland

The Archeology gallery of the National Museum of Ireland is a chock full of fascinating treasures.  The building itself is also remarkable.  I’ve enjoyed visiting this place with both Esther Sterchi and Amanda Bernhard (the famous Fulbright student).  Of particular interest at this museum: numerous bog bodies, “prehistoric” relics, the Viking exhibition, and the unimaginably long wooden boat that was carved from a single tree trunk (see the panorama below).

I love the design of the Museum. I wish I could see it without the skylight blocked out, though.

I love the design of the Museum. I wish I could see it without the skylight blocked out, though.

strairwell
iron columns
grand central space
by shannonchance

Pondering St. Stephen’s Green

Here’s a quick glimpse into St. Stephen’s Green.  The squares and greens in Dublin are separated from the street by dense vegetation and high wrought iron fences.  That technique doesn’t work it the States, where such separations tend to yield dangerous spaces.  But here they seem safe enough (at least for me to occasionally pass through by myself at mid-day).

Due to the separation, the squares and greens are peaceful, quiet, and serene.  They offer respite from the hustle and bustle of the city.  Like New York’s Central Park, St. Stephen’s walled off Green was designed to be seen, not heard.  The views were designed to be “scenic” in the tradition of English landscape design (i.e., they were carefully composed for the visitor’s viewing pleasure).  St. Stephen’s Green is not a park for playing football/soccer or dodge ball.  Frederick Law Olmsted would probably not be pleased with all the sport that’s been carved into Central Park (it runs counter to his original intentions for serenity, visual perfection, and individual contemplation).

St. Stephen’s Green is often quite still.  And far fewer people go in than if the edges were transparent, “perforated,” or “porous.”

The Green is fine (and at times quite delightful) but I do quite prefer bustling, noisy, stone-paved plazas myself.  Dubliners, too, want urban spaces like that and many hope for the addition of new piazze (Italianate plazas) in the center of town.  They have only three to my recollection: Meeting House Square, Temple Bar Square, and Smithfield Plaza. The first two are quite small and the third is very large. It is, I’ve been told, the largest cobbled plaza in all of Europe.  (Or perhaps, just the longest?)

What Dublin lacks in piazze though, it makes up for in bustling pedestrian-only shopping streets. Dublin clearly has the corner on the market with regard to streets, with some of the finest pedestrian shopping streets to be found in the world (Grafton Street and Henry Street, for instance).

Cottage at the south east corner of St. Stephen’s Green.
A formal garden in the Green.
Workers re-shingling the roof of a garden pavilion. They said “hi!”
by shannonchance

A Dubliner of All Trades

Today, I needed to purchase a new external hard drive so I could download photos for you.  On the way to the computer store, I ran into Brendan Lynch.  He ran the musical performances I attended at the Arlington Hotel with Esther, Kitty Lee and Patty.  He also owns The Horse Shoe, located where Capel runs into Bolton Street.

Brendan had the door to his shop open and the sounds of an Irish banjo filled the air.  I stepped into the tiny space, introduced myself, and learned a bit about Brendan’s past and present work.

Turns out Brendan is an artist, photographer, musician, performer, music teacher, instrument trader, city planner, conservation expert, and business owner… a Renaissance man in my book.  As he’s also a history buff, I told him about Fergus Whelan’s book, the planners I’d come across when visiting the former parliament building, and the tour I took recently with DIT’s Gavin Buggy.

I heard music coming from The Horse Shoe as I passed by today…
…so I stopped in to chat with Brendan Lynch, the owner…
…who also plays weekends at the Arlington Hotel’s traditional music and dance show.
Brendon is an artist, musician, and city planner specializing in conservation (though there’s no funded work in that vein for him to do today).
Brendan lent me a book about the Liberties (the area around the Dublin City Council building). We reminisced of grand buildings no longer in Dublin, and those that need restoring…
…like this one on Henrietta Street…
…used in films today…
…that I visited…
…on a February 6 tour of “Lost Dublin”…
hosted by DIT’s Gavin Buggy.
Gavin talked about losses incurred in the building of the Dublin City Council chambers…
…and showed us what the district around Dublin City Council looked like in medieval times.
by shannonchance

Worth the Long Wait at Muckross House

Kitty Lee, Patty, Shannon, and Tony at the lovely Muckross castle/house.

Bundled up and ready to tour Muckross House!

Muckross house is located near the town of Kilarney in southwestern Ireland.  We went there — twice — last week.  We had to work hard to see inside of the house, but I knew my three traveling companions would enjoy seeing the place.  Dave and I had been there in 2003 and had a splendid time and other friends of ours mentioned this as a highlight.

So we scurried there after seeing the Ring of Kerry, checking the official website for opening times. It indicated the house was open 9-5:30, seven days a week, in winter.  But although we arrived at about 4:20, the place was shut tight.  There was absolutely no sign of life inside the ticket booth or house and there were no signs posted with the tour times of opening hours.

However, the restrooms and grounds were still open and the park ranger assured us the house would reopen at 9 the next morning.  So we headed back to Cork for the night — an 1.5 hour drive — and hurried to the house again early the next morning.  We attempted to phone the Muckross office starting at 9 AM, but no one would answer the phone.  When we arrived at 9:30, the two ticketing agents told our host, Tony Duggan, that the first tour would be given at 11:30.  They said to visit the grounds until the tour started.  He let them know we already had!

Fortunately for us, the man is a CEO and knows how to get things done.  After all, we had other sites to see on our last day to the region. He managed to finagle a tour at around 10.  We experienced a fairly curt delivery of information with little opportunity to ask questions, but nevertheless, we enjoyed seeing the house.

I hope when you go to visit this fine building and learn its interesting history (it was last owned by an American family who gave it to the Irish people) you have better luck with scheduling than we had!

Exploring Muckross.
Grand entry of Muckross house.
Muckross House
Kitty Lee, Patty, Shannon, and Tony at the lovely Muckross castle/house.
The ladies (Kitty Lee, Patty, and Shannon) at Muckross House).
There are winter gardens and greenhouses.
What a beautiful little structure!
Orchids
A constructed view — they built this lake as a view for the house, I learned in 2003.
Landscape around Muckross House
Carriage rides are available around the grounds.
Kitty Lee, Patty, and Shannon at Ladies View, where Queen Victoria and her Ladies in Waiting stopped during their visit to Muckross.
Kitty and Patty thought the Hobbits might appear.
Ladies View.
Ladies View.
by shannonchance

Map of Dublin Neighborhoods

A very interesting map by “Bold & Noble” that was posted on the Only in Ireland Facebook page.

Dublin neighborhoods. (I don't know the original source, but this map was downloaded from Only in Ireland's Facebook page.)

Dublin neighborhoods. (Downloaded from Only in Ireland‘s Facebook page.)

by shannonchance

Birthday Surprises

Who ordered the rain?

Who ordered this weather?

Wow!  What a day!

It’s my birthday; the 43rd one of my life.  Besides the weather, great things happened!

#1) I awoke to great news: I’d been invited to review a manuscript for a special edition of JEE (a different edition than the one we’ve written for).  I’m hoping this is a good sign.  Apparently the editors though I was sufficiently competent to be part of their rigorous peer-review process.

#2) My aunt Kitty Lee and her friend Patty Asplund arrived fresh off the plane. This is the first day Kitty has ever spent outside North America!!!

Shannon, Kitty Lee, and Patty.

Shannon, Kitty Lee, and Patty.

#3) Mom woke up in the middle of the night (Pennsylvania time) to call and wish me a happy day.

#4) I put Kitty Lee and Patty on the hop-on hop-off bus and headed for sushi with my colleagues. Little did I know they’d planned a birthday lunch. Sima *baked* a gluten-free cake using truffles, chestnut flour, butter, and cream. Amazing!!!!  The sushi was awesome too.

#5) My replacement bank card finally arrived. YAY!!!!

#6) I visited the former House of Parliament (now owned by the Bank of Ireland, a long story that I’ll save for another day).

Sima, Brian, Gavin, and Shannon.
Birthday cake alla Sima!
Blowing out my (4)3 candles!

I got a fabulous tour of the most historic room by Phillip and Jeremy.  I’ll return again to learn more from John and Sean. And Jeremy will copy some information for me to pick up. While I was there, I met a group from Northern Ireland. They’d all been police (some representing loyalists and some representing nationalists — in other words, on both sides). In any case, they’d have been the ones “keeping the peace” while the men I met in the Cobblestone were out in the past *not* “keeping the peace.”

William of Orange

William of Orange

Phillip told me the stories depicted on the tapestries hanging in the hall.  The victor of the story was William of Orange. Three years after the event depicted, King William and his wife (Queen Mary) chartered the College of William and Mary in Virginia. Where I earned my PhD!  Philip said that Mary was much more important in all that than William. I said that’s why we have t-shirts that say, “Mary and William.”

#7) The bus was right there when I stepped out of the Bank, ready to whisk me back to my apartment.

#8) The post had safely delivered birthday cards and a package from each of parents (my Mom, and my Dad and Step-Mom).  It’s wonderful to be remembered.

#9) I got word that our photo show is on!  The title is

Inter-changes: Interpretations of Ireland by Three Virginians
Photographs by US Fulbright Scholar Shannon Chance, Dave Chance & Glen McClure

#10) Kitty and Patty have sweet-talked the hop-on bus driver into delivering them to my doorstep.  I am telling you: Patty is a charmer!!!!  She’s a seasoned traveller — and a former missionary — who has a way of touching people’s souls.  I’m glad she’s here to help Kitty Lee learn the traveling ropes!

We’ll be out for #11 soon!  I’ll let you know how it goes (they are likely to crash soon…).

A model of the Bank of Ireland building.
Shannon Chance in the Bank of Ireland.
Bank of Ireland’s former Parliament chamber.
by shannonchance

Upcoming Photo Exhibition in Dublin

I’ve got an exhibition of reflection photographs in the works for spring. It’s to occur during May at Notre Dame’s O’Connell House on St. Stephen’s Green.  Tuesday, I met to plan with Notre Dame’s Lisa Caulfield and Joseph Stranix as well as Fulbright’s Joanne Davidson.  I showed them some examples of my work and, thankfully,  got enthusiastic response. 🙂

It’s a big, beautiful space and I look forward to filling it with images.  It’s so much space, in fact, that I am hoping to include my two favorite photographers in the show. (I’m seeking final approval for that.)  I’ll keep you posted as plans progress.

It’s a gorgeous space, and I though you might enjoy seeing it pre-show:

Lisa and Joanne reviewing my photos from a past exhibition.
The view toward O’Connell House (it’s on the right, Marrion Square is to the left.)
Plaque inside the O’Connell House.
The fabulous and welcoming O’Connelll House.
I can hang photos in the entry hall…
…and the two large rooms on the first floor (that’s the second floor in American terminology).
A view of the two rooms.
View from the back room.
I’m not using this room, but I wanted to show it to you. So beautiful. The back wall is hung in “salon style.”