URBAN EXPRESSION

All Types And Styles Of Urban Expression

Historic Building

DUBLIN CASTLE WAS HANDED OVER TO THE IRISH FREE STATE IN JANUARY 16 1922

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DUBLIN CASTLE WAS HANDED OVER TO THE IRISH FREE STATE IN JANUARY 16 1922

Erected in the early thirteenth century on the site of a Viking settlement, Dublin Castle served for centuries as the headquarters of English, and later British, administration in Ireland. In 1922, following Ireland’s independence, Dublin Castle was handed over to the new Irish government. It is now a major government complex and a key tourist attraction.

The 100th year celebration, 16 January 2022, of the handing over of Dublin Castle by the British to the Free State was a very low key event but I decided that it might be a good idea to visit and photograph the memorial plaques.

Most of the current construction dates from the 18th century, though a castle has stood on the site since the days of King John, the first Lord of Ireland. The Castle served as the seat of English, then later British, government of Ireland under the Lordship of Ireland (1171–1541), the Kingdom of Ireland (1541–1800), and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1800–1922).

After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, the complex was ceremonially handed over to the newly formed Provisional Government led by Michael Collins.[1] It now hosts the inauguration of each President of Ireland and various State receptions.

The castle was built by the dark pool (“Dubh Linn”) which gave Dublin its name. This pool lies on the lower course of the River Poddle before its confluence with the River Liffey; when the castle was built, the Liffey was much wider, and the castle was effectively defended by both rivers. The Poddle today runs under the complex.

MARTELLO TOWER No.15

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MARTELLO TOWER No.15 [WILLIAMSTOWN – BLACKROCK]

https://www.fingal.ie/sites/default/files/2019-04/Martello%20Towers%202008.pdf

Williamstown is located between Booterstown and Blackrock.

This was originally offshore and therefore surrounded by water as the site was selected to enable it to signal effectively, by flags, to its neighbouring Martello towers at Sandymount and Seapoint.

About fifty Martello towers were built around the Irish coastline, especially along the east coast, from Millmount (Drogheda), to Bray, around Dublin Bay (29 installations) but also around Cork Harbour on the south coast. On the east coast, concentrated mainly around Dublin Bay, twenty-six towers were in line of sight of each other, providing the ability to communicate with one another, or warn of any incoming attacks.

Possibly the most famous is the Martello tower in Sandycove, near Dún Laoghaire, in which James Joyce lived for a few days. Joyce shared the tower with Oliver St. John Gogarty, then a medical student but later to become famous in Irish history as a surgeon, politician and writer. In Ulysses, the fictional character Stephen Dedalus lives in the tower with a medical student, Malachi “Buck” Mulligan, whom Joyce based on Gogarty. The James Joyce Tower, as the tower is now known, houses a museum dedicated to Joyce.

A number of other Martello towers are extant nearby at Bullock Harbour, Dalkey Island, Williamstown, Seapoint and Sandymount and Martello towers feature in many literary works set in Dublin. During the 1980s, Bono owned the Martello tower in Bray, County Wicklow.

Martello Tower South No.7, on Tara Hill, Killiney Bay, is unique, as is its location as an enfilading tower. The Tower is privately owned and has been fully restored, to include a proofed, working King George 3rd Blomefield 18-pounder cannon mounted on a traversing carriage on the crown of the Tower. There is a three-gun battery below the tower, with a glacis. There is also a coach house, artillery store, tool shed, and gunner’s cottage, with resident gunner and gunpowder store. The battery, while restored, remains to be armed and the coach house and artillery store still require some restoration.

On the north side of Dublin, one can find Martello towers in Balbriggan, Shenick Island and Red Island at Skerries, Drumanagh Fort, Rush, Tower Bay in Portrane, Donabate, Malahide (Hicks tower), Portmarnock, Ireland’s Eye, Howth, and Sutton.

There were seven Martello towers in the vicinity of Cork Harbour of which five are extant. During the 19th century Fenian uprising, the famous Captain Mackey briefly captured and held the Monning Martello tower near Fota Island in Cork Harbour; this tower is believed to have been the only Martello tower ever captured, other than the original. The other Cork Harbour towers are at Ringaskiddy, Haulbowline Island (now part of the Irish Naval Service HQ) and at Belvelly and Rossleague on the Great Island (near Cobh). There are also Martello towers at Little Island and Rostellan, though these are no longer intact.

The British built two Martello towers on the Hook Peninsula to protect the fort near Duncannon, Co. Wexford and the entrance to Waterford Harbour. There is a third tower on the headland at Baginbun Bay in Co. Wexford.

One of the most interesting Martello towers is Meelick Martello Tower at Clonahenoge, County Offaly, guarding the Shannon river crossing to Meelick, County Galway. As this tower supports three guns (unlike the normal Martello tower which is circular on plan and carries only one gun), it is cam shaped on plan. Currently a rampant growth of ivy covers the tower.

The tower at Seapoint, County Dublin, which was the property of Blackrock Urban District Council was formerly the clubhouse of the Seapoint Boat Club from 1916 to 1931, and was subsequently the headquarters of the Genealogical Society of Ireland (GSI).The GSI vacated the tower when it found that the atmosphere was not conducive to the preservation of records.

The restored tower at Ilnacullin is a feature of an island garden in Glengarriff, County Cork. Several other towers are still extant, including one at Rathmullan in County Donegal and two in County Clare on the south coast of Galway Bay in the townlands of Finavarra and Aughinish. There is also an extant Martello tower located near the settlement of Magilligan Point in County Londonderry, built between 1812 and 1871 to defend against a possible French invasion during the Napoleonic Wars; it is now a visitor attraction.

A Martello-like tower was built on Achill Island, according to local memory during the Napoleonic Wars. It is square rather than round, unlike the traditional Martello tower. This tower is known locally as the Gabhla Fhranca (“French Tower”) or the Napoleonic Tower. It is marked on an 1838 Ordnance Survey chart and denoted “Signal Tower,” suggesting it was used with a series of other stations for communication. The tower’s position offers a view of the sea both to the north and south of the island and is therefore well-suited for that purpose. By the 1830s the tower was described as a “watch-house of the coast-guard.”

McDONALDS VEVAY ROAD BRAY – THE OLD TOWN HALL

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McDONALDS VEVAY ROAD BRAY – THE OLD TOWN HALL

When I operated from in Bray in the 1970s McDonalds had not yet arrived in Ireland. In 1979 I moved to Santa Clara in California and, for various reasons, my first meal in the USA was at McDonalds and I cannot tell you how disappointed I was. While in California I visited some really good restaurants but I was not impressed by the burger chains but as the restaurants that I liked were expensive the comparison might not be fair.

To the best of my knowledge McDonalds came to Dublin in 1987 having established their first UK restaurant in 1974.

In the 1880s Bray more or less consisted of one long street of houses at the head of which are two long streets – Vevay Road and Killarney Road. The Town Hall was built where the three streets meet.

The plaque at the entrance to the building, dedicated to the Brabazons who commissioned the construction of the hall, reads:

“This Town Hall and Market house was erected by Reginald Lord Brabazon, son of William 11th Earl of Meath and Mary Lady Brabazon only daughter of Thomas 11th Earl of Lauderdale in the year of our Lord 1882”

HEIF FORMAT

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A QUICK VISIT TO DUBLIN CASTLE – SHOT USING HEIF FORMAT

I normally shoot in RAW but I am currently experimenting with an Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max and I used [by accident] HEIF and Lightroom Classic did not like the format and crashed a few times which has not happened for at least a year.

Sometimes colours [especially yellow] and skies can look a bit odd.

High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is a container format for individual images and image sequences. The standard covers multimedia files that can also include other media streams, such as timed text, audio and video. A HEIF image using High Efficiency Video Coding, HEVC, requires only about half the storage space as the equivalent quality JPEG.

HEIF also supports animation, and is capable of storing more information than an animated GIF or APNG at a small fraction of the size.

HEIF files are a special case of the ISO Base Media File Format (ISOBMFF, ISO/IEC 14496-12), first defined in 2001 as a shared part of MP4 and JPEG 2000. Introduced in 2015, it was developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and is defined as Part 12 within the MPEG-H media suite (ISO/IEC 23008-12).

HEIF was adopted by Apple in 2017 with the introduction of iOS 11, and support on other platforms is growing