Sir, – In The Irish Times’s reporting of commercial property transactions and other property-based news you will frequently refer to certain properties as “landmarks” in your headlines.
What I think is a landmark and what someone else thinks is a landmark is somewhat subjective, however, and depends much on the experiences of that person with that landmark in their lives.
But what does The Irish Times think it takes to be a landmark? To start, best to be located in south Dublin.
An analysis of the 100 most recent Irish Times’ headlines which use the term “landmark”, in reference to property reveals the following: 87 per cent of all of Ireland’s landmarks are based in Dublin, not bad for the 29 per cent of the population who live in the capital, and hard news for the 22 counties which find themselves landmark-less.
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Of the 13 per cent found outside of Dublin (found in Cork, Galway, Limerick, Kilkenny, Roscommon, and Antrim) half of them are hotels, perhaps hinting at how the country beyond the capital is seen.
Narrowing in, some variation exists within Dublin itself. Of the 87 landmarks in the county, only 16 per cent can claim to be Northsiders and just a sole landmark exists within the three western constituencies of the capital, it being a former car dealership. Happiness can be found for the residents of Dublin’s leafier suburbs, however, with five landmarks identified by the paper in Ballsbridge, along with four in neighbouring Monkstown, and four more in Donnybrook.
A quick visual analysis of the 100 locations mapped out appears to outline two other institutional landmarks, one being the south end of the Dart line and the Baggot Street Mile pub crawl route. – Yours, etc,
JOSHUA SOLAN,
Berlin.
