I LIKE THIS YELLOW GATE

21/01/2024

I think that house could be described as being on Cambridge Road or Belgrave Road in Rathmines. The Church is an Anglican church located at Cambridge Villas, Rathmines.

8 JULY 2004

08/01/2024

Back in 2004 I was using a Canon iXUS I and it was not at all bad compared to my Sigma DSLR which could only be described as a disaster.

The Digital IXUS (IXY Digital in Japan and PowerShot Digital ELPH in US and Canada) is a series of digital cameras released by Canon. It is a line of ultracompact cameras, originally based on the design of Canon's IXUS/IXY/ELPH line of APS cameras.

The same camera models were released in Europe, the US, and Japan under different names. The cameras themselves were identical apart from the front fascia, according to the parts lists. The Canon model number on the bottom is consistent between marketing names. 

The coastal suburb of Dún Laoghaire is popular for strolls on the East Pier, and locally caught fish and chips. The National Maritime Museum of Ireland has nautical art and artefacts inside a 19th-century sailors’ church, while the harbour is a busy hub for fishing, water sports and cruises. Nearby Sandycove is home to the James Joyce Tower and Museum, as well as the sheltered beach and bathing spot at Forty Foot.

URBAN EXPRESSION

05/01/2024

This photograph dates from 1 February 2012 and back ten I used a Sony Nex-5 Mirrorless which was somewhat constraining.

Bedford Row 38KV Sub Station In Temple Bar is located at junction of Bedford Row and Fleet Street.

To the best of my knowledge Inputout is James Earley (b.1981), an Irish artist who lives and works in Dublin, Ireland.  His practice is rooted in graffiti, graphic design and his family’s heritage in stained glass. He creates artworks that are timeless in their aesthetic and rich in their conceptual narrative.   

The building in my photograph was designed by architect Vincent Kelly for the ESB [Electricity Supply Board] in 1926. It is one of the earliest examples of the International Modern style in Ireland and is one of the few public buildings of this style in the Dublin.

Constructed by McLaughlin & Harvey, it contained an electrical sub- station along with associated office accommodation. I am not sure if there is currently any office staff based in the building.

I will provide more recent photographs later this year (2024) as there is a very impressive mural there at present. 

SUNLIGHT CHAMBERS

05/01/2024

I first photographed this building back in February 2012 and I used a Sony NEX-5 camera which was my first mirrorless camera.

Sunlight Chambers is a commercial office building on the corner of Parliament Street and Essex Quay in the Temple Bar area of Dublin. It was designed by architect Edward Ould in an Italianate style and was named after Lever Brothers' Sunlight detergent brand.

Lever Brothers was founded in 1895 by brothers William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925), and James Darcy Lever (1854–1916). Together with chemist William Hough, the brothers created a soap that used glycerin and vegetable oils such as palm oil instead of tallow. The resulting soap was free-lathering. At first, it was named Honey Soap but later became "Sunlight Soap".

In 1899, the brothers leased land opposite Grattan Bridge on the banks of the River Liffey to set up a Dublin branch of their company. They hired Liverpool architect Ould, who had previously designed various buildings for the company's Port Sunlight model village near Liverpool. The Dublin building was designed and constructed between 1900 and 1910 and named after their then-famous soap brand.

In the late 1990s Gilroy McMahon architects restored the building and repainted the exterior in a 'light umber' colour.

Ould designed the building in the Italianate style. This was unusual for the area, which was dominated by genteel Georgian and Victorian architecture that tended to be externally restrained and internally decorative. According to Ireland's National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, the building is marked by distinctive faience panels that depict the history of soap production. While Essex Quay was laid out in the 1720s, Sunlight Chambers is the oldest remaining structure in the riverside area.

The sculptor Conrad Dressler was engaged to design much of the external frieze work on the building.

At almost the same time, Lever Brothers built a branch in Newcastle upon Tyne, which they also called Sunlight Chambers. Although the Newcastle branch was designed in a modified Baroque style rather than an Italianate style, both Sunlight Chambers feature characteristic circumferential friezes.

Lever Brothers was one of several British companies that took an interest in the welfare of its British employees. The model village of Port Sunlight, then in Cheshire, was developed between 1888 and 1914 adjoining the soap factory to accommodate the company's staff in good quality housing, with high architectural standards and many community facilities. The paternalism found at Port Sunlight did not exist in the operations of its subsidiary in the Belgian Congo, where Lever Brothers, through their subsidiary Huileries du Congo Belge (HCB), utilised forced labour between 1911 and 1945.