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Docking Station

ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE GOOGLE BUILDING ON GRAND CANAL STREET

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DUBLINBIKES DOCKING STATION 14

Google employees will be able to cycle to and from work as there is a DublinBikes docking station across the street from their workplace.

I have not visited this area for a few years and today I was surprised to discover that the Treasury Building is currently a construction site.

When I returned from California in the 1980s I lived at the corner of Eblana Villas and Lower Grand Canal Street and at the time the building was the Hertz HQ in Ireland. There were three apartments but mine was the only one that was occupied. I think that the building is now named Wentworth House and it may have been home to a language college. I was offered all three apartments at a very good price but decided against buying as there was serious anti-social activity in the immediate area.

Google bought the Treasury Building from Ronan Group Real Estate for €120 million in early 2020 to further expand their Silicon Docks campus which is nearby. In February 2022 Dublin City Council granted planning permission to Google Ireland to increase the height of the building from six to eight storeys.

The Treasury Building was the headquarters of the Irish government’s National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) for many years. Redeveloped by Ronan Group, the Treasury Building was described as a landmark six-storey Grade A office building that previously housed Boland’s Bakery. This historic building was occupied by Éamon de Valera, later President of Ireland, during the 1916 Easter Rising.

Following its purchase in 1984, a major redevelopment saw the building stripped back to its concrete framed structure and reimagined for a new commercial future with the first 20,000 sq ft floorplates ever delivered in the Irish market.

Rowan Gillespie was commissioned to create a sculpture for the outside wall of the building. The statue, named ‘Aspiration’, was originally of a naked man climbing the outside wall, but Johnny Ronan insisted that the sculpture be changed to a woman. The statue was made of fibreglass. The sculpture was removed in 2020 when the building was sold.

THIS IS THE SECOND ESB eBIKES STATION THAT I HAVE SEEN

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MAIN STREET SWORDS

ESB eBikes is a pilot rental initiative, with 112 bikes across 12 eHub charging stations and 12 virtual stations in the suburbs of Dublin city. The programme will run in some of Dublin’s busiest commuter locations across South County Dublin, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, Finglas and Fingal.

The aim of this initiative is to support the electrification of transport by offering an accessible and sustainable solution for people to travel around Dublin city. ESB eBikes is part of the European eHUBs project and is funded by Interreg NWE. We are working with mobility solution providers, Bleeper and Moby, and all four Local Authorities in Dublin.

NOW NOW NOW NOW

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DUBLINBIKES DOCKING STATION 77 WOLFE TONE STREET

The robust bicycles are produced by the French bicycle company Mercier in Hungary and are repaired by JCDecaux. They are three-speed bicycles, fitted with Shimano Nexus gears which can be changed up and down using a twist/grip shifter on the right handlebar. A Shimano hub dynamo in the front wheel generates power for front and rear always-on LED lighting. The bikes are fitted with Schwalbe Marathon tyres. Other components include a locking system, an adjustable cushioned saddle, a front bicycle basket, a kick stand and a bell.

Each station is equipped with an automatic rental terminal and stands for 20 to 40 bicycles. Initially, fourteen terminals have credit card facilities enabling the user to purchase a 3-Day Ticket.

If a user arrives with a rented bicycle at a station without open spots, the terminal grants another fifteen minutes of free rental time. The rental terminals also display information about neighbouring dublinbike stations, including location, number of available bicycles and open stands. A fleet of bicycle-transporting vehicles are used to redistribute bicycles between empty and full stations.

DUBLINBIKES DOCKING STATION 77 WOLFE TONE STREET 001

DUBLINBIKES DOCKING STATION 01 PLUS A WATER-BOTTLE REFILL STATION

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CLARENDON ROW

In December 2021 Dublin City Council announced that the first water-bottle refill station would be installed on Clarendon Row and at the DublinBikes docking station would return to the street. I was aware that the Docking Station had been installed but I did not notice the water refill station until today.
The scheme was progressed as part of the Grafton Street Quarter Public Realm Plan, which was developed to meet the objectives of the overarching Dublin City Council Public Realm Strategy ‘Your City Your Space’ document. A high quality design was utilised to improve ambiance of the street, with increased greening and wider footpaths creating a quality space to be enjoyed by all.

I was advised that Clarendon Row was named after Frederick Villiers Clarendon but as he died as recently as 1904 I knew that this was unlikely and recently learned that it is named after the Earl Of Clarendon.

George William Frederick (1800–70), 4th earl of Clarendon , lord lieutenant of Ireland (1847–52), was born 26 January 1800 in London, eldest son of George Villiers and his wife Theresa, daughter of John Parker, 1st Baron Boringdon.

Frederick Villiers Clarendon (c.1820 – 17 October 1904) was an Irish architect noted for his design work on a number of large public buildings in Dublin, including the Natural History Museum and Arbour Hill Prison.

Frederick Clarendon was born in Dublin around 1820 and received a Bachelor of Arts at Dublin University in 1839. Directly after graduation he was employed by the Office of Public Works, where he would remain until his retirement in 1887. Clarendon died in Mountjoy Square, Dublin in 1904.

Clarendon’s earliest major works focussed on Dublin’s prison system. Arbour Hill Prison was redesigned in 1845 by Sir. Joshua Jebb with Clarendon acting as executive architect, and Clarendon was also co-designer of the “Criminal Lunatic Asylum” in Dundrum two years later. Clarendon oversaw the renovation and extension of the Royal Irish Academy’s premises on Dawson Street between 1852 and 1854, as their existing Grafton Street location had become overcrowded. Clarendon’s most remembered work is Ireland’s Natural History Museum on Merrion Street adjacent to Leinster House, known as the “Dead Zoo”. The Royal Dublin Society had been obliged to use a public architect in order to obtain treasury funding, and the building was taken over by the State in 1877. Today the Museum forms part of the National Museum of Ireland. Clarendon provided his services free of charge to design the Mariners Hall, Howth in 1867. This then served as a Presbyterian Meeting House for over thirty years, services being conducted through the medium of Scottish Gaelic, the language of the immigrant seasonal fishermen of the village.

DUBLINBIKES DOCKING STATION 03 ON BOLTON STREET

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THERE ARE MANY RESTAURANTS NEARBY ESPECIALLY ON CAPEL STREET

The Docking Station is outside Bolton Street College which is in the process of moving to the new University Campus at Grangegorman.

Because of the college many restaurants have opened over the years because the owners expected to attract a lot of student business but almost all closed within two or three years. However, BoCo, which does not depend on student business, has proved to be a huge success and if you like pizza it is highly recommended. Recently I noticed that the Taco Libre (pub restaurant operated by the Galway Brewery Company) has closed and the El Patron Mexican Street Food restaurant across the street has become the Tia Maria Brazilian Restaurant. The Art Flamingo recently became the Burger House but when I visited it a few weeks ago I was told that it would close again and reopen under new management. A few doors along the street a new restaurant is being outfitted but I have no further information.

Early in 2013 I purchased a Sigma Dp3 Merrill and while it could produce the best images ever it was in reality a disaster. The batteries could at times last only long enough to capture 40 images [at best no more than 80] and one could forget about selecting any setting other ISO 100. In order to process RAW images one needed to use Sigma’s Photo Pro 5.5 which was supplied with the camera.

Recently I discovered that Photo Pro 6.8.3 was much more user friendly than the version supplied with the camera so I decided to charge all eight batteries, that I still had, and use the camera for a day (22 April 2021) but unfortunately the weather proved to be way too wet. Two of the batteries were exhausted after ten captures.

The DP3 Merrill was the latest of a trio of almost identical compact cameras released by Sigma, all named for Dick Merrill (1949-2008), the co-developer of the Foveon image capture system. The DP1 Merrill and DP2 Merrill were announced in early February 2012. The former features a 19mm f/2.8 lens that provides the equivalent of a 28mm field of view in 35mm format, while the DP2 Merrill has a 30mm f/2.8 lens with a field of view equivalent to 45mm. Unveiled on 8 January, 2013, the DP3 Merrill sports a 50mm f/2.8 lens with a 75mm equivalent focal length that is ideal for portraiture.