Sir, - Over 80 years ago, James Joyce in A Little Cloud a story in Dubliners, expressed a view about the Liffey Quays.
"Little Chandler", his central character, revolted against "the dull inelegance of Capel Street.
As he crossed Grattan Bridge he looked down the river towards the lower quays and pitied the poor, stunted houses. They seemed to him a band of tramps, huddled together along the river banks, their old coats covered with dust and soot, stupefied by the panorama of the sunset and waiting for the first chill of night to bid them arise, shake themselves and begone."
The view from Grattan Bridge of "poor stunted houses covered with dust and soot" was one which included Bachelors Walk, about the rebuilding of which some of your correspondents are being excessively critical. As a mere citizen, I regard it as remarkably successful and an embellishment to the quays, which elsewhere have not been served so well.
An eyesore remains, however, at the junction of O'Connell Street and Bachelors Walk. The block on this corner was one of the very few which survived the O'Connell Street blitz during the Troubles - a pity. Today, it is one of the most prominent in the city, with a jerrybuilt ugliness about it, masked by a hotchpotch of illuminated advertising.
Some rebuilding here is surely required. And let us not get excited about the possibility of pastiche. Now that John Graby, the general secretary of the RIAI, reminds us (May 16th) of the Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word, let's recognise that it is a long honoured architectural practice. Otherwise what are all those Corinthian, Ionic and Doric columns doing holding up the fronts, or clamped to the walls, of some of our most loved and admired buildings?
"Pastiche" is just a derogatory word in today's debates and, like many such easy to use, derogatory words, it frequently conceals a thinness of serious thought about alternatives. - Yours, etc.,
Mullach Ide,
Co Atha Cliath.