(...)
According to what perspired and was even written on in 1999 it looked as if Archer's garage (an Art-Deco inspired building dating from the late 1990s said to have been the first building in Ireland to be constructed from reinforced concrete, which serviced Ford auto-mobiles at the time) was to be the latest casualty of rampant development when it was partly destroyed by contractors.
A public outcry led to an order to have it restored, this being the reason as to why it is referred to the "building that rose from the dead".
We realised then that we had been walking most day, having moved across Dublin in search of the unusual secret details, and though it was getting late it was still clear enough for us to cover another area before heading back to the guest-house to collect our back packs, so we walked towards the Grand Canal area, which we hadn't explored yet in search of another figurative piece by Rowan Gillespie, better known as the outstanding sculptor of the "famine" statues.
Along the way we came across a rather interesting sculpted female figure, that had no indication as to who its author was.
We strolled around the quiet Grand Canal area and we must confess it took us a certain time to actually locate "Aspiration", a bronze figure sculpted in 1995, which is said to be regularly overlooked by strollers travelling South along Grand Canal street (so I am not surprised we missed it as we walked back and forth).
It is said to represent the Irish struggle for freedom. Boland's Mills, which once stood on that site was occupied by a small force during the 1916 rising. Although it appears small in the context of the building, the sculpture is said to measure approximately 3.6 metres and has been cast as continually climbing with still further to go.
The next unusual detail was the Diving Bell on Sir John Rogerson' Quay, a big, bright-orange chunk of metal looking like it could be destined for the scrapheap but definitely more of a treasure than trash. Dating back to 1860 it was intended to flatten prefabricated slabs, which had in turn been used instead of traditional cofferdam techniques in the expansion of deep water quays. It was later lifted to its present site in the 1980s.
We soon found ourselves by the outstanding Samuel Becket bridge, the Convention Centre of Dublin and Jennie Johnston famine ship. I couldn't help taking quite a few photographs ...
Having sighted the linesman's statue on campshire walk and the Matt Talbot's memorial we went across the bridge bearing his name and continued walking along the Liffey till we finally reached O' Connell bridge.
The façade of the Immaculate Heart of Mary City Quay Parish church
I had been on this bridge almost everyday and had never realised there were bicycles in the river, just underneath ... lying on the river bed as if to rotten, similarly to many we had seen in the Dutch canals some years back.
We had one last secret detail marked in our notebook ... and we were determined to find it - bullet holes in the O'Connell monument. Said to be a legacy of the 1916 Rebellion and the turbulence that followed, the four winged victories representing patriotism, courage, eloquence and fidelity are peppered with dozens of small holes ... and we managed to locate many of them (said to be in the total of thirty).
We took one last stroll in the area we "lived" at for such a short and yet intense period of time in Dublin before heading to a pub, where traditional music was being played and guests showed their mastery at dancing. The atmosphere was familiar-like and certainly most adequate for what would turn out to be the most interesting part of the last evening spent in Ireland, (the less interesting one having been the five hours we strolled around the International airport before boarding an early flight to Lisbon).
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