Condominiums,
Pent-houses and Duplexes– did you ever know the likes? If your great-
great-granny could hear you she’d think you were talking dirty! Anyway,
apartments have arrived for better or worse and Ringsend is being encircled
by them.There’s all manner of apartments available and both daily and evening newspapers carry special features or supplements giving all the details needed for the prospective buyer.
There’s ground floor apartments with decorative patios. And first, second and third floor apartments with ‘own’ balconies. Fancy that now, your very own balcony all for yourself. Sure wouldn’t you be a real ‘toff’, as me Gran used to say owning one of them.
Wouldn’t you be on the pig’s back and you peering down from your ‘own’ balcony overlooking a, wait for this, ‘courtyard setting’. Wow, as Pat Kenny might say.
But no matter what type of apartment you take a shine to, whether it’s the humble studio or the three-bed penthouse they all have one thing in common. All are endowed with a ‘sunny aspect’. The heavens can open, cats and dogs may fall, hurricane Hannibal can do his worst, but apartments will always retain the obligatory ‘sunny aspect’.
Other features include ‘underground’ car parking, for the Merc you understand and electronic gates to keep the riff raff out. The ‘intercom’ is a great man for saying ‘thanks, but no thanks’ when the politicians call.
The number of apartments that have sprung up in the Ringsend and Irishtown area over the last few years is incredible. There are at least twenty apartment blocks within a half mile of each other and Minister Dempsey talks about ‘high density’.
Fisherman’s Wharf, Camden Lock, The Waterside, Charlotte Quay, Shelbourne Village, Pembroke Square, Millennium Tower, The Anchorage, are just a few of the apartments encircling Ringsend.
These apartments are breeding like rabbits. Construction is continuing apace at St Patrick’s Villas, Ringsend Road, South Lotts Road, Cambridge Road, Barrow Street through to South Lotts and Rope Walk Place.
The village of Ringsend will soon be completely ‘overlooked’ as they say in housing terms. A quick wash at the sink while stripped to the waist is out of the question, unless you want the fella on the sixth floor gawking at you.
These apartments are out of reach price-wise for the majority of Ringsenders. Many native Ringsend people, especially young couples have had to move to the suburbs, unable to afford the exorbitant prices being asked for these apartments. Ultimately, in twenty or thirty years Ringsend’s unique community will have changed forever as the indigenous Ringsender gets the big heave ho.
Part
of the team of local people who help to keep St. Patrick’s Church
in Ringsend in pristine order are pictured here.