EXCELLENT STREET IMAGES

THE GRANGEGORMAN CLOCK TOWER

May 25, 2023 by infomatique

PHOTOGRAPHED USING A SIGMA DP3 QUATTRO

Originally opened in 1816 as the Richmond Penitentiary, this iconic tower is one of the most well-known of the 11 protected structures on the Grangegorman site. Built to the designs of Francis Johnston, also known for the Lower House on site and for the GPO on O’Connell St, the Richmond Penitentiary was the first of the penitentiary style in Britain and Ireland. The front facade, which overlooks Grangegorman Lower and the western side of the site, is all that remains of the original structure. The Grangegorman Masterplan shows the building’s final use as academic space for the College of Engineering & Built Environment.

Today I obtained an unused Sigma Quattro DP3 camera and, believe me, it is more than difficult to use for multiple reasons. The first problem that I had was that the internal battery was exhausted and I could not change any settings, I could not even set the date and time. The second problem was that AF would not work so I had to focus manually which was difficult without a viewfinder.

The biggest problem is that LightRoom does not recognise the RAW files and there is no point in using the JPG files and to complicate life one needs not to use any setting above ISO 100. Alto the battery life is the worse that I have encountered.

THE GRANGEGORMAN CLOCK TOWER [PHOTOGRAPHED USING A SIGMA DP3 QUATTRO] 002

COVE STREET AND NICHOLAS CHURCH LANE

May 22, 2023 by infomatique

MAY 2023 VISIT TO CORK

Because of unpredictable weather conditions I was not able to complete some of my projects and failed to photograph in detail many areas that I had intended to visit or had visited previously. For example I had intended to photograph St Nicholas’s Church.

The street “Nicholas Church Lane” is located in the southwest of Cork. It is about 45 meters long.

St Nicholas’s Church is a significant mid nineteenth-century Gothic-Revival Church, with much original fabric intact. Designed by Welland, with steeple by Atkins and transept windows by Hemmings. Built to replace earlier church on same site. Deconsecrated, and internal fittings and fixtures stripped out in early 1990’s.

The church is described as follows: “Detached Gothic-Revival Church, built 1850; formerly Church of Ireland, now closed and deconsecrated; having slate steeply pitched roofs and limestone roof to steeple, squared limestone ashlar walls, stepped buttresses and cut limestone verges, with open timber roof to gallery and timber panelling to Chancel; set in elevated site with graveyard, limestone ashlar gateways to Cove Street and to Nicholas Church Lane, cast iron gates, with overthrow to Cove Street gateway; currently undergoing renovation.”

On April 17, 1921, Constable John Cyril MacDonald, a twenty-eight year old single man from 31, Whirring Stone Road, Fulham, London was walking with a female friend along Cove Street when two men approached them, heading towards Barrack Street. As they passed, one of the men jumped on McDonald and pinned his arms behind him. The other pointed a revolver at him which he tried to knock away but was shot in the face. As he lay on the ground he was again fired at a number of times. As the men then ran off down Cove Street, the girl rushed to the fire station on nearby Sullivan’s Quay to summon an ambulance for the dying man. However, he succumbed to his wounds five days later. McDonald had been a soldier prior to joining the Black and Tans and had been in Ireland for four months at the time of his shooting.

COBH TRAIN STATION ON A REALLY WET DAY

May 21, 2023 by infomatique

IN MAY 2023

PUBLIC TRANSPORT AND RELATED TOPICS

CORK CITY AND COUNTY

When I arrived in Cobh the weather was beautiful but about twenty minutes later I had to return to the station in order to shelter from an intense thunder storm. I decided to get the next train towards Cork city centre but as the weather had improved I got off the train at Rushbrook but after about twenty minutes more rain arrived.

Cobh railway station serves the town of Cobh, County Cork. It is located in a red brick building adjacent to the town’s Cobh Heritage Centre.

It is the terminus of the on Cork-Cobh section of the Cork Suburban Rail line. Travel to Glounthaune station to transfer to Midleton.

The station opened 10 March 1862 and was closed for goods traffic on 3 November 1975.

It began life as the terminus of the Cobh (then Queenstown) section of the Cork, Youghal & Queenstown Railway.

The present station occupies only a small part of the old station building. The original station was expanded greatly during the latter part of the 19th century as it served what was then Ireland’s largest emigration port which was also an important way-point as the last port between Western Europe and North America. The station was also the main receiving centre for mail for Ireland and Britain from the United States and Canada. Mail would be brought by ship to Cobh, processed and forwarded by mail express trains to Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) on the outskirts of Dublin and on to Holyhead. This was faster than conveying by ship directly to Liverpool.

It is famous for being the station where hundreds of survivors of the RMS Lusitania disaster left the town of Cobh after surviving the sinking.

With the development and growth of transatlantic air traffic Cobh lost its importance as a mail and passenger centre. A significant part of the train station remained largely unused until the opening of the Cobh Heritage Centre in the front part of the station in the 1980s. At that time the station was also reduced to a single platform. The freight yard of the station has now become a public carpark while another part of the station has become a covered carpark for Cobh Garda Station.

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ST FINBARR’S CEMETERY IN CORK

May 13, 2023 by infomatique

THE MAIN STRUCTURES

I made three attempts to visit and photograph this cemetery. The first time I got the wrong bus and ended up miles away and had to wait an hour for a return bus. The second time I had to abandon the session because of a thunder storm. The third time the rain held off for about forty five minutes.

St Finbarr’s Cemetery, which opened in 1868, is the largest cemetery in Ireland outside of Dublin. The keeper’s house (office) is inside the gate to the left. Inside the graveyard there are two small churches (Catholic and Protestant) that were built when the cemetery was first opened and were used for funeral services for a time.

The freestanding cruciform Roman Catholic mortuary chapel was consecrated in 1867. This chapel, designed by Sir John Benson, has a Hiberno-Romanesque influence, most evident in the round tower to the north elevation. The use of basalt stone for a building is very unusual in this part of the country and the polychromatic use of the paler limestone with the basalt results in a distinctive character and appearance. The scalloped slate to the roof and decorative cast-iron rainwater goods are examples of the type of architectural ornamentation favoured during this period. Although very similar to the Protestant chapel in the cemetery, this building displays subtle differences such as the location of the entrance porch and round tower.