It is, at first, rather shocking to learn that a branch of the Ann Summers sex-shop chain is to open shortly on O'Connell Street, directly across the street from the GPO, the once-sacred spot where Patrick Pearse proclaimed the Republic on Easter Monday, 1916. If someone possessed of supernatural foresight had told Pearse and his comrades of such an eventuality - surely unimaginable to such men at such a time - would they have called the whole thing off? We can only speculate.
And we can only sympathise with Mr Tom Coffey, chief executive of the Dublin City Centre Traders Association, who has described the proposed shop as "totally inappropriate" on a street which is, after all, the capital's grandest thoroughfare. Many people will share his distaste, not least because of the impact of such a shop on unformed young minds. Yet in a sense Mr Coffey is mistaken, for at a time when the old certainties are fading before the shiny new gods of liberalism and commerce, there is a perverse appropriateness in the siting of a British-owned sex emporium opposite the supposed shrine of Irish nationalism.
In aesthetic and environmental terms, it is, sadly, difficult to argue that a sex emporium is out of place amid a vulgar clutter of fast-food joints, slot-machine casinos, "pound shops", late-night groceries and other visual assaults on the street's intrinsic elegance. A tourist walking north from O'Connell Bridge, having perhaps read in a guide-book about O'Connell Street's proud 18th-century origins, and its iconic status in independent Ireland, must be bemused to encounter, in the few yards before the intersection with Abbey Street, four fast-food outlets (Burger King, McDonalds, Eddie Rockets and Supermacs), a Ladbrokes betting shop, and Crazypound, which speaks for itself - all standing cheek by jowl in what is fancifully promoted as Dublin's answer to the Champs Elysees.
Now, visitors will now be able to round off a look at the GPO (where there is, in honesty, little enough to see) with a browse among the marital "aids" and exotic lingerie on display across the street. Welcome to modern Ireland.
It is shameful to recall that, after the ravages of the 1916 Rising and the Civil War, the impoverished new State painstakingly rebuilt O'Connell Street, but the more affluent Ireland of the 1960s and 1970s left it at the mercy of speculators and developers. We are, supposedly, wiser now and the announcement in the spring of 1998 of the O'Connell Street Integrated Area Plan raised hopes that the fortunes of the area were on the rise again. The plan envisages a series of improvements, including the widening of the footpaths to accommodate pavement cafes, a new civic space in front of the GPO, the renewal of a number of key sites, and the provision of high-quality street furniture. The linch-pin of the plan is to be the controversial Millennium Spire - whose strongly vertical lines may now acquire unintended overtones.
While admirable in theory such schemes are largely a waste of time while the type of retail activity in O'Connell Street - the key factor in setting the appearance and tone of the thoroughfare - remains largely beyond the scope of the Corporation's powers. Has anyone in Government thought about this?