Endangered Dublin

What's worth saving?

Flatland

“Apartments”, not “flats”, “studios” instead of “bedsits” – the language changed when apartment blocks sprang up and it sounded swankier, more European. The 2011 census revealed that a third of all household types in Dublin are apartments – most built after 2001. Some Victorian redbricks were brought back to single-family occupancy and there were predictions that between that and the new builds, flatland would die out. Dublin still has an old- style flatland for those who can’t afford apartments.

There are still multiple bells on doorways in Ranelagh and Rathmines, Phibsboro and Drumcondra. A recent ad on myhome.ieoffered a studio – an old-school bedsit — for €500 a month on Palmerston Road in Rathmines and contained the two words that define the horrors of flatland – "shared bathroom".

Worth saving? Yes

But only if standards are checked

Petrol stations

In 2006, a petrol station on the Merrion Road in Dublin 4 sold for more than €15 million – double the guide price – a bubble price that had nothing to do with the demand for fuel and everything to do with the ongoing rationalisation of petrol stations as owners weighed up the value of sites versus tight profit margins on fuel sales. The sites were rarely more than a half acre but their prime locations made them valuable. The number of stations in the State halved between 1998 and 2008 and the capital’s motorists felt the reduction the most. In some cases, the crash came before the developers could build and so some have even returned to selling petrol and diesel.

Worth saving? No

Because their giant forecourt shops threaten small local shops

Liberty Hall

For more than 40 years, Liberty Hall was the country’s tallest skyscraper – the very word a throwback to 1960s glamour and modernity. It looks tatty now – not helped by the reflective glass installed in the early 1970s, and it has lost its “tallest” claim. But that’s not the point. It’s a symbol of the city, instantly recognisable to all Dubs. Liberty Hall’s owners, Siptu, consider it to be no longer fit for purpose and there are plans to demolish the building and replace it with a tower that is half as tall again and far bulkier. The new Liberty Hall will be 22 storeys high.

Worth saving? Yes

It’s not just Georgian buildings that are worth preserving.

Going into town

“Dublin can be heaven with coffee at 11 and a stroll in Stephen’s Green” – the words of the Dublin Saunter, the song made famous in the 1970s by actor Noel Purcell describing an idyllic wander through the city centre. “Going into town” used to have a clear geographical meaning: Henry Street, O’Connell Street and Grafton Street. In 2005, a new shopping mall in the south of the city called itself the Dundrum Town Centre. In the past seven years, more than 70 million customers have visited the centre . For a generation of Dubliners, living in a far more enlarged city, “going to town” means going here or to Liffey Valley or other suburban centres for eating, shopping or going to the movies.

Worth saving? Yes

The city centre is the rightful heart of Dublin

Local knowledge

It is almost quaint the way some of us hang on to street names when giving directions – the Stillorgan Road? Don’t you mean the N11? The Lucan Road – best say the N4, it would be clearer – and then there are the interchanges. The motorway is the new boundary – just as those living between the canals used to consider themselves proper urban Dubs, inside the M50 is the new Pale. Thanks to the speedy ring road, it is possible to cross the entire city without passing through the lived-in streets of a single suburb. You could be anywhere.

Worth saving Yes

Avoid the motorway and discover your city

Talking on the bus

“Oh no, we’re not like London,” we’d say, smugly. “On our public transport, we don’t stare straight ahead, grimly silent. We have the chat. We’re great.” Except as it turns out we’re not – our chat on the bus, Luas and Dart has dried up to such an extent that earlier this year a group of DCU students rolled out a project called “Bus Banter” to encourage people to just chat to the person next to them at the bus stop or sitting beside them. It turns out it’s good for our mental health and we all used to do it naturally, invariably beginning with “Were you waitin’ long?”

Worth saving? Yes

That and thanking the driver